...engaging and discerning culture, as a way of life...

February 06, 2007

Volver - 6

I'm afraid I can't clarify the plot of this film, if you haven't already seen it. Questions like: Who is the ghost? Really? Who died? How? are not easily made sense of in Pedro Almodovar's (Talk to Her, and the unimpressive- Bad Education) well weaved character and culture study. If one is patient I think it all makes sense in the end. The plot surrounds two sisters, Raimunda (Penelope Cruz) and Sole (Lola Duenas of The Sea Inside), and their understanding of their mother's death. This film is exclusively about women and the trauma that their relationships with each other and the men in their lives cause. At points funny the film develops into a drama where the characters are looking to find healing from the complex hurt of their pasts. This film highlights the passing down of tradition and wisdom from generation to generation through the women.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

How could you leave out any reference to Penelope's beautiful face and simply spectacularly gorgeous breasts? Practically the only way I refrained from leaving this extremely dull and long drawn out film was Penelope and her charms. And I'm a hetero girl. So don't start . . .

~greg said...

behind the silicon, there was a decent story here, which is what kept me in the theatre. Also, I think that the audience is under the impression that the mother is dead...I don't think that is the case if you are listening closely nearer the end.

Anonymous said...

um

http://www.celebsvideoarchive.com/video.php?model=Penelope+Cruz

not silicone. That was a cold and dismissive remark.

If I don't care personally about the characters, then I don't care what the plot is, really. However, the vivid images of the beautiful woman and her beautiful breasts as an icongraphic visual theme reinforced the movie's most interesting theme beside the point of the plot: it struck me as primarily the story of how women cope with their world, their lives, their fate: to be sexual and maternal objects in a man's world. Like most fates, it has its good and bad points. I just thought Almodovar, a gay man, makes a bit of hash of the story and should've stuck to visual iconography or gay porn. But that's just my girly opinion.

~greg said...

was't trying to be crude, sorry to offend. All I was trying to point out was that, while Almodovar does focus somewhat on women's breast, there is more to the film than that. And yes, I agree the story does work "as primarily the story of how women cope with their world, their lives, their fate: to be sexual and maternal objects in a man's world. Like most fates, it has its good and bad points."
I thought this movie did just that, confusing some with allusions of seeing the dead. I repeat, the mother survived, but was thought to be dead becuase of the fire that killed her husband and his mistress.