Volver
Posted by Clayton L. White (stinky_booties@hotmail.com) on April 1, 2007
For the last twenty five years, Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar has been one of the most talked about directors in the world. His career started around 1980, and he gained international success with 1988’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. It’s been over the last ten years, however, that his talent has been in full bloom. His 1997 film Live Flesh kicked off a string of masterpieces that include All About My Mother, Talk to Her, Bad Education, and now Volver. With each new film, Almodovar confirms the fact that he is one of the world’s all time great filmmakers.
Volver tells the story of a woman named Raimunda, played by Penelope Cruz. After a tragic incident involving her husband, Raimunda takes on the task of running a local restaurant to support her and her teenage daughter. She doesn’t buy the restaurant, nor is she legally employed there, she simply takes it over while the owner/seller is away. She enlists the help of her daughter and some of her friends from the neighborhood to feed a film crew that is shooting in the area. While the restaurant is becoming a success, her hairdresser sister Sole (Lola Duenos) is seeing ghostly visions of their dead mother, played brilliantly by Carmen Maura. On top of all this, Almodovar throws in murder, incest, rape, and just about everything else you could imagine.
Almodovar’s work usually tends to focus mainly on women. He loves women, he admires there courage, and respects their determination. He uses film as a medium to celebrate every aspect of the female form, from their bodies to their personalities. Instead of a cheap, fantastical, Hollywood view of women, like what Cameron Crowe gives us, Almodovar gives us real women that we immediately recognize. They could be our mothers, our sisters, our wives or daughters, or if you are female, then they could easily reflect yourself. With the exception of Fassbinder, Almodovar is possibly the only male director in all of cinema who understands women, and his films are built around that notion.
As in all of his films, the technical aspects of Volver are perfect. The cinematography by Jose Luis Alcaine paints the screen in almost every color imaginable, but puts an emphasis on the use of red. Almodovar’s script is about as flawless as a script can be, and his direction follows suit. The performances are great all the way across the board, especially by Maura, but when you come down to it, this is Penelope Cruz’s show. She earned an Academy Award nomination for this role, and she is simply amazing here. Cruz has gotten a bad rap here in America, but in her native tongue she has always excelled, especially with Almodovar in All About My Mother, but she goes deeper here, and as a result she comes up with Almodovar’s greatest creation. Raimunda is funny, intelligent, sweet and lovable, but she is also strong willed and determined. This character will stick with you, and Cruz’s performance is one for the books. A flat out remarkable piece of acting.
As usual with Almodovar, there is so much on display that a simple review could never do the film justice. Like David Lynch, Almodovar is one of the few filmmakers who deserves the term “artist.” We don’t watch his films, we experience them. If you’ve never seen an Almodovar film before, this is a perfect start. If you are familiar with his work, then this is another masterpiece to add to the list. If it wasn’t for Children of Men, this film would have easily been the best movie of 2006, that means that there is no excuse for you to miss it. This is a great film that will haunt you for a long time. Volver means “To Return,” and here’s hoping that Almodovar returns with another masterpiece soon. The DVD is available on April 3. Grab it.
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