In the annals of things I could not have seen coming, none has been more unexpected than โWomen Wearing Shoulder Pads,โ a queer Spanish-language stop-motion comedy melodrama, set in the aesthetic world of a 1980s Pedro Almodรณvar film. (It arrives Sunday at midnight on Adult Swim, the home of things one doesnโt see coming, and premieres the next day on HBO Max.)
Though it takes place in Ecuador, its central character, Marioneta Negocios (Pepa Pallarรฉs), is Spanish, and itโs easy enough to imagine Almodรณvar muse Carmen Maura in the role โ though it is also impossible to imagine the story told as well, or at all, in any other way. When I call this series perfect, notwithstanding the happy imperfections of its puppets and sets, itโs not because everything works as its meant to, but because thereโs nothing you can measure it against โ it occupies its own self-created space. Every element is necessary. Even presenting it in English would be to lose romantic, dramatic, telenovelistic force.
At the center of the story is the cuy, a guinea pig eaten in Andean South America, though in this telling theyโre also used in a version of bullfighting. (Some cuys are large enough to ride on.) The primary action is a power struggle between Marioneta, a socialite running a campaign promoting cuy as pets, not food, and Doรฑa Quispe (Laura Torres), who has risen from life as a humble butcher to the anything-but-humble CEO of the countryโs most famous restaurant, El Cuchillo (the knife).
Mixed up in their lives are Coquita Buenasuerte (Gabriela Cartol), Marionetaโs seemingly happy-go-lucky assistant; Espada Muleta (Kerygma Flores), a matadora in love with Marioneta; Nina (Nicole Vazquez), Doรฑa Quispeโs vegetarian daughter, serving a pro-cuy group as its Minister of Refreshments and Head of Recruitment for Rebellious Teens โ โI have looked upon the caged cuy through the prison of capitalist enterprise, through the hubristic iron bars of a homocentric world viewโ โ who will become a pawn in the older womenโs game.
Not everything will be as it seems.
Created by Gonzalo Cordova (a veteran of โTuca & Bertieโ and โAdam Ruins Everythingโ) and produced by the Mexican animation studio Cinema Fantasma, the series comes packaged as eight 11-minute episodes โ that is cartoon length โ which neatly constitute a short feature film. On the bill are mystery, suspense, terror, revenge, hot romance (including some puppet sex), masked stalkers, performance art, love notes posted with knives, parodies of television shows and commercials, old secrets coming to light and nuns singing karaoke.
From โGumbyโ to โRudolphโ to โWallace and Gromitโ to โThe Fantastic Mr. Fox,โ stop motion is of all forms of animation most magical and in its real-space, three dimensional, handcrafted way the most like life, if not necessarily the most lifelike. (It can look ungainly, which is also part of its charm.) Itโs a magnification of childhood playtime, a puppet show in which the puppets have broken loose from the puppeteers. The cleverness of the execution is as or more important than how seamless it is. โWomen Wearing Shoulder Padsโ does all sorts of neat tricks, some you notice and more you simply accept โ and when deemed necessary, or just amusing, it will insert a live-action hand or mouth. Itโs an exaggerated world โ appropriately to the heavy-breathing material โ but emotionally expressive, even moving, and lots of fun.