Julieta

After taking something of a major nose-dive with "I'm So Excited" that many other directors might not have recovered from, Almodovar is back on something approaching his best form. In many respects, "Julieta" is his 'All About My Daughter' though it doesn't have the same emotional clout that "All About My Mother" or "Volver" had. This is Pedro is a very serious mode, perhaps too serious; maybe a little bit of humor might not have gone amiss.

Julieta is played by two different actresses, (Adriana Ugarte and Emma Suarez), at different stages of her life and much of the film is told in flashbacks. These women, and Almodovar's meticulous direction, hold our attention but I was never moved by the film in a way I felt I should have been, at least until the very end.

The source material is three stories by Alice Munro, none of which I've read, but considering how seamlessly Almodovar keeps the material flowing I am sure he has done a very fine job of adapting them for the screen, nor can I imagine how the original conception of filming this in English with Meryl Streep might have worked. So not quite top-notch Almodovar but proof, nevertheless, that he can still deliver the goods when he's called to.

My interest in Almodovar is rather muted. He doesn't excel in any of the ways of presenting the world that really matter to me but he does several things more than well, so every so often I visit. There is the desire to submerge ourselves in fiction, lose ourselves to self in order to wake to a fabric that extends from self. That's Talk to Her for me.

But like Woody Allen or the Coens, he has consistently worked for so long on the same motifs that coming to him is also a matter of is he particularly inspired that day. I'm pleased to say he is.

In the individual pieces of cinematic craft, this is not particularly exceptional. If you're heavily inclined to how story resolves drama, you will see here something that simply trails off near the end. The symbolic motifs greet us upfront; a deer in slow-motion, tumultuous sea out the window. His bright reds on walls and the like are not something I can get excited about, in this or any film.

But he is inspired today on the fundamental matter of self passing through self. He manages to do this with just a few strands of narrative. There is the young woman who was on her way to all life ahead of her that night on the train, who finds herself yanked by unexpected passion. There is the house of passion in the small fishing village, eerily explored with Hitchcock hues. And there is bewildering loss as she wanders away a widowed mother.

Above all I love here the sense of transition. Almodovar does so well - his actress helps - in spinning narrative to explore tragedy. He says enough about the jittery urge for adventure as a story we throw ourselves in so that we can infer more fleeting illusion around the crushing melodrama about life breaking down. She's not just this grieving woman that another film, say, in the realist format would have simply followed around Madrid; we're privy to all this richness of her young self having set off in search. Things couldn't have only worked this way for her, it's important to see; but sometimes they do, sometimes setting out for open sea means finding yourself marooned on an island, nothing right or wrong.

And Almodovar is ineluctably Spanish, meaning Catholic; so communion with the fleeting, transcendent stuff must take place firmly within ritual, in his case (just like Ruiz before) fiction. The whole is narrated by an author writing the story down as she waits in her apartment, shifting us forward and back. It speaks about the imaginative mind being burdened by the narratives of memory. For Almodovar, there is merit in the effort. Had she not stayed behind to write, she would have missed the letter. Even more pertinently for me, there is a bedridden mother (a mirrored woman) who is allowed to languish in her room, written off as an invalid. But when her daughter comes to visit, the recognition nourishes her back to her feet.

I found Julieta to be interesting at the very least. The story has a smooth flow and My whole attention was within the movie. I was trying to grasp everything the characters said while enjoying the visuals and the score.

Technically, this is probably Almadovar's best work. The scenery and camera work is beautiful. The colors please the eye. The score in the background is always in the right tone. Aiding to the smooth transitions within the movie. The cast is excellent. I understood clearly who each character is.

The main theme of Julieta is the relationship between a mother and her child. And that some things we understand as we grow older, with our life experience. This is a recurring theme in Almadovar's movies ('High Heels', 'Volver') but it is set upon a different set of characters with different virtues and faults. And of course a different story.

The plot is imperfect but it is very interesting nonetheless. I didn't fall in love with the characters of Julieta like it was in 'All about my mother' - and this is the main reason I didn't rate it higher - but I still felt their human side. And on the upside, there were no annoying or boring characters either.

People write about a new Almadovar. Well, for me it was a bit of misleading. I saw the director's signature elements through the whole movie. I'm talking about the camera shots, the low amount of people on set, the gradual revelation of events so when the credits roll the viewer knows all that happened explaining all the references made. It is less extravagant then some of his other work, but it is definitely not his first in being such.

I'm a big fan of Almodóvar's work, his movies follow my life since I was a teenager, I always adore his early work, movies like "Kika", "High heels" and "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" are still considered by me as the height of his career - a bizarre comedy- dramas with a kinky side and raw edges.

in the late 90's Almodóvar became famous worldwide with movies such as "live flesh" "all about your mother" and "talk to her" a melodramatic movies that touched us with a unique approach and vivid colors.

this movie is similar to his big successful movies from the late 90s: the women are in the center of the story where the men pushed aside, there is still a melodramatic approach and lots of mysteries that similar to an onion, piled up slowly, layer by layer until the very end of the movie. the colors are vivid like most of his movies, especially the red color, a sign of passion for Almodóvar, just like his Characters who drive themselves by their total passion to life and love.

so, is that movie good? if you want to compare it to his best and famous work - "all about your mother" and "talk to her" then this movie will lose the fight, it's less sophisticated and the plot has less twists, but still it's a good movie with a touching plot, good acting and a great director who hasn't lost his touch.

In Madrid, the middle-aged Julieta (Emma Suárez) is packing her books to move to Portugal with her boyfriend Lorenzo (Dario Grandinetti). She goes shopping for the journey and stumbles upon Bea (Michelle Jenner), who was the best friend of her missing daughter Antia. They talk to each other and Bea discloses that Antia is married with three children. Julieta decides to stay in Madrid; breaks with Lorenzo; and rents an apartment in her former building, hoping that Antia contacts her. She decides to write the heartbreaking story of her life since she was a young woman and met her beloved future husband and Antia´s father Xoan (Daniel Grao) until the losses of Xoan and Antia.

"Julieta" is a dramatic romance by Pedro Almodóvar in a conventional style totally different from most of his previous works, since it is neither tacky nor aggressive to the Catholic Church; and using neither bright colors nor bizarre characters. Indeed it is a mature work disclosing the story of a middle-aged depressed woman that has her life affected for the loss of her beloved husband first and the last twelve years for the disappearance of her eighteen year-old daughter. The most important, the powerful drama never becomes a melodramatic soap-opera. The screenplay is very well-written with a perfect open end and magnificent cast. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Julieta"