Tout sur ma mère

One thing is for certain: you sure can't accuse Pedro Almodovar's `All About My Mother' of narrative timidity. In its relatively brief 102-minute running time, it provides a literal smorgasbord of sensational plot elements: a fatal car accident, a dead teenaged son, organ transplantation, transvestite prostitutes, lesbianism, pregnant nuns, drug addiction, AIDS, Alzheimer's, and death by childbirth – more than enough juicy elements to warm the heart of any lover of classic melodrama or daytime soap operas. Even if the film had dealt with only half of these issues, it would still be a challenge to maintain some sort of overall focus. As it is, we spend most of the movie staring in head-scratching amazement at the sheer audacity of the enterprise.

Certainly, the critics have not been stingy in heaping effusive praise on the work and both the Motion Picture Academy and the Foreign Press Golden Globe committee have echoed that praise by bestowing on the film their coveted awards for Best Foreign Language Film of 1999. But does the film really merit all these critical hosannas and kudos? Not by a long shot! Jaded as we may be by the deadening predictability and lack of originality that, sadly, define the majority of films released each year, it is, nevertheless, still incumbent upon us not to be bowled over by a film that takes the alternate path of undisciplined bizarreness. `All About My Mother' cries desperately to be a moving and important study of women's roles in society, but, by trying to compress so many of the eccentricities of life into one story, the film leaves us more incredulous and perplexed than stimulated and touched.

One element does succeed brilliantly, however, and that is the outstanding performance of Cecilia Roth in the leading role of Manuela, an attractive 38-year old mother who, upon the sudden death of her child, is compelled to return to the dark past she long ago fled and to seek some sort of redemption. She provides us with the warm center of human compassion this film so desperately needs to keep it from becoming a completely clinical exercise in absurdity. Streamlined perhaps, her story might have made for a fascinating and incisive film. But Almodovar is so busy loading up his film with rather obviously drawn parallels that we really never believe a minute of it. The film is rife with ineffectual and pretentious allusions to `All About Eve' and `A Streetcar Named Desire,' as the movie characters' lives take vaguely similar paths to those of the characters found in those works. And the finale, in which Manuela's maternal affections find a new object to latch on to, seems coy and artificial – an attempt to leave the audience on an emotional high after all the misery and heartbreak it has witnessed in the course of the film. The whole enterprise, ultimately, seems hopelessly artificial.

That artificiality at least justifies the gorgeous look of the film. Almodovar has, as always, splashed across the screen his usual array of brightly colored walls, furniture and clothing that makes the film seem to exist in a world located somewhere between realism and surrealism. This bold visual palette is always one of the joyous fringe benefits that accompanies the watching of an Almodovar film.

Unfortunately, in this case at least, he hasn't created a film with a story, cast of characters or theme to match in quality or intensity the glorious, many-hued background he provides. Despite all its many awards and its extraordinary critical acclaim, `All About My Mother' doesn't hold a candle to Almodovar's truly wonderful previous film, `Live Flesh.' Check that one out instead and see the difference.

What a genius Almodovar is! Who else could take such esoteric material and make it not only enjoyable, but relatable. It takes a lot of chutzpah for a male director to swan dive into the gulf of womanhood (I can't believe I just wrote that) and emerge with such truth, HUMAN truth. While the characters of this film seem to represent certain female archetypes, they still flow organically through the ingenious plot. Almodovar shows us that any taboo subject can be tackled without it being exploited when it is done with a compassionate heart. The sheer WARMTH of this movie is what makes it a stunning success. The performances in this film are unforgettable. Cecilia Roth is so dazzling and real, and heartbreaking. But only a genius like Almodovar can break our hearts but still give us hope.

Almodovar is masterful: he has created a film that seeps into you and rips apart your insides. Each moment is flawlessly crafted- the cinematography and light are lush, the writing is heart-wrenching. Loaded with irony and paradox, the story deals sensitively with a plotline that could have been sensationalistic. The strongest feature is perhaps the acting here, which is consistently superb, particularly in the case of Cecilia Roth, the lead actress. This may be the best film I have ever seen.

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.

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.