Tout sur ma mère

Almodovar has really matured. 'Women on the Verge' was a lot of fun, but ultimately fairly superficial. In recent years, he seems to have started to turn his back on kinky sex and excessive behaviour, and probe the human psyche with a lot more depth and subtlety. This tender film is the latest stage in this ascending path, and very welcome it is, too.

Cecilia Roth's performance is utterly convincing - profound, varied, humane. The other characters are strongly drawn, too. The photography is excellent, and even the tricksy shots aren't too distracting. The narrative is not without surprises (the tragic event early in the film is called to mind constantly without ever becoming maudlin). It's a little slow in places, and there are moments of unintentional humour, but overall this represents the best work of this director that I have seen.

I came to this film wanting to hate it, but I was seduced by it and it affected me deeply. Why hate? Because I had just seen a TV documentary about Almodovar. He talks a good deal of shallow rubbish, and the showbusiness darlings who surround him are vile. However, his film speaks with the sincere voice of artistic talent. It even has a touch of greatness.

It is a film about Woman. Almodovar is well-known for his preoccupation with feminine sensibility, and here we go through the range of female awarenesses - Madre, Puta, Actriz. This is not the 'macro' masculine world of war and politics, but the feminine 'micro' universe of caring, loving and suffering. In a real sense, it is "All About Eve".

Manuela loves her son Esteban totally and unconditionally. When he is taken from her, she must forge a new life. Back in her native Barcelona she finds fulfilment caring for Rosa the pregnant nun and Huma the barren actress. A new Esteban appears, and the cycle of living and loving begins again.

This flimsy summary of the story gives no real idea of the film's symbolic and dramatic richness. It is a pattern made of other patterns, with stories repeating, reversing and overlapping endlessly. Names can mean a break with the past (Agrado, Huma) or they can insist on continuity (Rosa, Esteban). In the guignol tradition, names can also delineate character - Agrado tries to make life agreeable for others, Huma Rojo is red smoke, a hollow illusion, and Nina is an adult with a child's personality.

Almodovar deliberately offends against social custom. Women are fathers, birth means death and drama is more real than life. It is tempting to think of Almodovar as the new Bunuel, and he takes the same childish pleasure in shocking the 'decent' Spanish bourgeoisie. When Agrado gives her performance in the theatre, the old folks walk out in disgust while the youngsters stay and are entertained.

"This play marked my life," says Manuela of 'A Streetcar Named Desire'. It made her a mother (the defining experience of her existence) because it introduced her to Lola. She explains that she played Stella and Lola played Kowolski, literally and figuratively. The male symbol is brutal and cruel, the female symbol is the nurturer of life who endures abuse because she loves. Like Stella, Manuela escaped, pregnant and alone. The play returns later as Esteban's birthday treat and the cause of his death. Manuela knows the text by heart, and when she follows the production to Barcelona, fate pulls her into the drama and she triumphs as Stella. Huma is Blanche, the sad derelict, "relying on the kindness of strangers". (Another link with the play is the title of Almodovar's own production company, "Deseo".)

Esteban's delight with his new book is shown in the reading of the foreword - "es un prefacio maravilloso!" The film, similarly, has a marvellous preface. A bag of plasma drips purposefully, its valve shaped like a crucifix. The symbolism is rich and catholic, and prepares us for what will come - here is a figurative mother, giving the blood of life and suffering the cross of sorrow. Taps, console and graph represent institutionalised care, as opposed to the natural, personal care of a mother. These things are neat and orderly, but cold and soulless. This is the organ donation unit of a hospital. It does excellent work, but we see its effort in fragments rather than a whole. The files list organs, not people - 'higado', 'corazon'. Technology can help us, but it can never replace maternal love. We feel uneasy when we are told that "the machine is breathing for him".

Manuela works as a nurse (symbol of the nurturing mother) in this unit, and we see her as an actress appearing in a training video, playing a mother whose son is dead. Two doctors ask for the boy's organs. New life must be nourished from his body's wreckage. When the scene is repeated for real, it is almost too painful to watch. Almodovar takes us to the 'meta' level, with Manuela's anguish setting up cross-rhythms with her professionalism. Love is stronger than systems, and the organ co-ordinator weeps for Manuela.

The real Manuela stands tiny before a vast advert for 'Streetcar', showing Huma's face. Is the image more potent than the individual? Or is Almodovar saying that superficial impact fades, whereas human empathy endures? What is the relationship between the true woman and her made-up face? Esteban dies pursuing the 'red smoke' of an actress's fame. If he had stayed with his real mother and not chased an illusion, he would have been safe.

Esteban will bestow new life. We go with Manuela as she follows her son's heart to Coruna, where another young man has hope restored. The mulch of death feeds the roots of life. Manuela knows two places, Spain's first and second cities, Madrid and Barcelona (importantly for Almodovar, these are the two pre-eminently 'modern' towns). She moves between them along the tunnel umbilicus, as a pregnant teenager, childless mother and finally as triumphant madonna with the 'new' Esteban.

The spectacular vista of Barcelona and sumptuous portal of Gaudi's Sagrada Familia rapidly disappear, and we are soon in an ugly wasteland where prostitutes parade as grotesques in a hell worthy of Goya. These two Barcelonas recur again and again - the outward city of quirky, appealing architecture and the mean streets of the hopeless, directionless underclass.

Almodovar's narrative has been engrossing up to this point. Now it will expand and deepen as a new cast of characters is woven into the film's fabric.

"Que raro!"

This time of the year, when we talk about movies, we have to talk about Oscar. The nominees will be announced this Tuesday, but there are already favorites in some categories. Some people still doubt that "American Beauty" will win as best picture- which I don't, because I think it was the best film of the decade- but almost everyone agrees that this wonderful movie "Todo sobre mi madre"/ "All About My Mother" will win as best foreign language film. And it really deserves that.

I've always recognized Pedro Almodóvar's talent. Most of his films are very weird and quite surreal, but sometimes I don't understand him. So I couldn't decide if I would see "All About My Mother" on the movies, or if I would wait for it to come out on video. It was released in Brazil last October, and only yesterday I went to see it at a local cinema. And... What did I think about it? Well... A true, true masterpiece!

The story of the film is about Manuela (wonderfully played by Cecilia Roth), a nurse who works at a hospital in Madrid, Spain, and has a 17 year old son, Esteban, who doesn't know the identity of his father. On the day of his birthday, he dies in an accident and Manuela gets desperate. She reads his notes and finds out that he wanted to know at least the name of his father. So she goes back to Barcelona, where she got pregnant, trying to search for her ex-husband, but some surprises will change her life.

What Almodóvar makes to this movie is just incredible. He makes us cry and laugh- specially in the scenes where the transvestite Agrado is. But, in fact, the film is a deep drama, studying carefully the female universe with strength and realism, and also explaining the importance of a mother. All the main characters are very well developed and each of them has some importance in the plot. It's really amazing how Almodóvar knows women so well, and how he loves and cares about them. His film is a very complex masterpiece, with some important messages and a wonderful story, and should be seen by everyone, even for the American people who don't like subtitles. But pay attention- the dialogues are fabulous!

"All About My Mother" is surely on my Top 10 of 1999. And... let's wait for the Oscar nominees on Tuesday, but I'm sure it will be nominated, and certainly win. It's much better than last year's winner as a foreign language film, "Life is Beautiful", and is a serious must-see. Just do me a favor: DON'T MISS IT!

Rating: 10/10

What I like most about Almodovar's films, this one in particular, is the way he will grab you and pull you into a world you would not normally know and then, confront you with people's lives, emotions, relationships. Manuela, the mother who at the beginning seems so in control and clinical, earnest in her love and with the best intentions for her son, is shown to be much like you and me... full of doubts, questions, a need for answers and trying to understand how her life course has brought her to the present day and made her who she is. Barcelona in winter is richly filmed and serves as a backdrop for the renewing of old satisfying friendships and the budding of new ones, happening simultaneously and somewhat unexpectedly. It rings so true. The slow realisation that we are never really complete, that it's the people we love and live with, or avoid and later regret having done so, that makes us who we are. Almodovar sees the human condition and paints it carefully in this film.

As this was my first Almodovar movie I didn't quite expect that much,was I ever going to be surprised.Almodovar is widely seen as the greatest Spanish cineast since Luis Bunuel,which I really like,and I must say that I concur with that.The resemblances between the two directors are also there,both use intense drama and comedy in one scene to great effect and both attack the church in a big way.

TODO SOBRE MI MADRE is simply one of the best drama's I've ever seen because of it's superb acting and difficult but inventive storyline.The characters are also very well worked out. Leading lady Cecilia Roth is sensational as the mourning mother and the rest of the cast isn't any worse.The supporting roles by Penelope Cruz,Marise Paredes and especially Antonia San Juan are great.San Juan is a real time transvestite which makes it even more realistic. Almodovar caused quite a commotion with this provocative film although it never goes over the line(at least not in my taste)but you should not be old fashioned or truly religious because then it will offend you.

The humor that is put in the film makes it an even better experience.The mixture of intense drama and comedy is perfect.Another brilliant addition is the great soundtrack.The mixture between harmonic classical pieces and jazzy compositions is magnificent.

I can't wait to see more of Almodovar's work. 9/10 (currently number 39 in my all time top 100 list)