These cuts include an S&M orgy at a gay club being shortened, a man sexually touching Lulu and a sex scene these scenes were restored for the 2002 DVD release. The film was cut in the UK by two minutes and 55 seconds by the BBFC. He had to go and cheer her up and Neri, says Bigas Luna, "opened her bathrobe and shot her sex in my eyes and said to me, crying: 'Bigas, I'm sick, I look ugly, hideous'". In an interview, Bigas Luna recalled the episode when Francesca Neri, due to script requirements, was forced to shave her pubes and burst into tears before shooting one of the film's most scabrous scenes. Neri is dubbed into Spanish by another actress. Javier Bardem has a small, uncredited role as a corrupt gay man, one of his first roles on screen. Ángela Molina, who was originally cast in the lead role, withdrew when she learned how explicit the sex scenes were to be. The film is an adaptation of the international best-selling novel with the same name written by Almudena Grandes.
Pablo calls the police, who arrest Jimmy and the others. She goes to the club to rescue her, but is attacked by Jimmy and killed when her head hits a metal bar.
She is forced to endure violent sex while gagged and bound. Remy tells Lulú to go to a club, where she is tied up by Jimmy, a gay man she had previously paid for sex. Ely tries to warn Lulú that Remy is dangerous, but Lulú ignores her, so Ely goes to warn Pablo. Unable to pay enough to satisfy her desires, she meets a pimp called Remy who runs a secret S&M club. However, her own desire to play increasingly dangerous sex games now comes to consume her.Īfter becoming aroused watching a gay porn movie, she seeks out gay men and pays them to join in orgies, or watch them having sex. Pablo convinces Lulú to participate blindfolded in a threesome when Lulú discovers that the third person was Marcelo, her brother, she leaves Pablo in disgust, taking their daughter with her. On one nocturnal expedition they join up with a transgender prostitute called Ely who becomes their friend. Pablo and Lulú have a passionate relationship, developing a taste for sexual games. When he returns he proposes to her and they are married. Lulú is sustained for years by the belief that Pablo will come back into her life. The fifteen-year-old Lulú is seduced by Pablo, her brother Marcelo's best friend, who then leaves to work in the United States.