Can the simple act of seeing a movie make you happy? I wholeheartedly know it can – and watching “All About My Mother” by master director – Pedro Almodovar – will do just that. Here’s a film that is brimming with life – that celebrates resilience – and like any great Greek drama – it will provide a cathartic experience – real emotional impact – to the viewer. To me Almodovar is cinema itself. This Spanish director is totally infatuated with movies, actresses – theatre and women – and he conjured this valentine to his loves in 1999 – deservedly winning the Oscar for Best Foreign Film. If you’ve never seen one of his works, “All About My Mother” will be the perfect introduction to one of cinema’s greatest auteurs.
Inspired by Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, Douglas Sirk, Federico Garcia Lorca and the classic film “All About Eve” – Almodovar weaves his own totally original tale involving a mother who loses her son – and surrounds herself with the most unexpected group of women – and together they learn to lean on each other and forge a new sense of family and buoyancy. The film is a celebration of motherhood – but ultimately of the elasticity of the human heart.
Almodovar is one of the most stylish directors – and “All About My Mother” displays all of his trademarks: bright colors (in particular red) – the music score – the impeccable design and composition – and his serpentine storytelling. But most importantly, in his writing and directing – there’s an unusually strong sense of character development – and consequently his cast delivers extraordinary performances. Every single actress in this film does. A young Penelope Cruz is unforgettable in this film – and of course she went on to become his muse.
In all of this, I forgot to tell you that Almodovar puts center stage characters that are usually marginalized – exposing the inherent hypocrisy in society.
I highly recommend you see “All About My Mother” for you could all use some happiness right about now.
Love,
Roger
Available to rent on Amazon Prime, Vudu, YouTube, iTunes and Google Play.
Written by Pedro Almodóvar
Directed by Pedro Almodóvar
Starring: Cecilia Roth, Marisa Paredes, Penélope Cruz, Candela Peña, Antonia San Juan, Rosa Maria Sardà, Fernando Fernández Gómez , Fernando Guillén and Antonio Cantó
101 minutes
About Writer and Director Pedro Almodóvar
Born September 25, 1951, in Calzada de Calatrava, an impoverished hamlet of La Mancha, Almodóvar was raised in a traditional Spanish household. As a teenager, Almodóvar was influenced by the films of such directors as Billy Wilder, Douglas Sirk, Alfred Hitchcock, Luis Buñuel, Blake Edwards, and neorealists Marco Ferreri and Fernando Fernán-Gómez; deciding to pursue a career as a filmmaker, he got out of La Mancha and headed to Madrid in 1969. Working at a phone company by day, he wrote short stories, mock newsreels, and spoof commercials at night, as he also made Super-8 shorts and one Super-8 feature. One of Almodóvar’s stories, a dirty photo-novel he was commissioned to write for a fanzine in 1978, became his first feature film, the 1980 Pepi, Luci, Bom. His film, All About My Mother premiered to great acclaim at the 1999 Cannes Festival, where it won Almodóvar a Best Director prize. He enjoyed further success at the 2000 Golden Globes and Academy Awards ceremonies, both of which saw All About My Mother garner honors for Best Foreign Language Film. Two years later, Almodóvar hit another career high with Talk to Her…Almodóvar won numerous honors across the world for his film, including a French César for Best Film and an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. (Fandango) A few of his other films include Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Law of Desire, Dark Habits, Volver, Broken Embraces,The Skin I Live In, Broken Embraces, Bad Education, The Flower of My Secret, and most recently, his semi-autobiographical film, Pain and Glory.
Hidden Meanings in All About My Mother
In an interview with Filmmaker Magazine, Pedro Almodóvar discusses A Streetcar Named Desire. “That play has a lot of meaning, and not only the meaning that Tennessee Williams intended, but all of the meanings it has for the characters in the film. For Manuela, doing that play was in some way a rehearsal for what she would then later do in her own life. She did that play 20 years before, and during that play, she met her husband Esteban, who would then become Lola. Esteban played Stanley Kowalski, and 20 years later he (or she) could play Blanche DuBois perfectly. And I also like that sometimes reality, in terms of the story I’m telling in the movie, happens on the stage. And on the contrary, that scene that takes place outside the theater in Madrid—that billboard outside the theater theatricalizes the exterior of the theater—it’s a set, and in a way, it’s more theatrical that what’s inside the stage. But these things are meanings that I take for myself and that help me to not feel gratuitous. And I need it: I need to give an explanation to myself for everything that I do. I am not used to clarifying those private things, because sometimes they are very serious, sometimes they help you, sometimes they are not so meaningful.” (Filmmaker Magazine)
El Deseo and Almodóvar’s Process
El Deseo, the company Almodóvar runs with his brother, Agustín, has produced his movies since 1985. It is from the stability of his production setup that his enviable artistic freedom derives. “When it comes to deciding what I include, I’m completely free—perhaps uniquely so. I’d find it hard ever to work within the Hollywood production system. That’s not to say I go over budget. I just spend the time doing things the way I want to do them. I never think about what the market wants. I don’t know what the market wants.” This freedom also means the ability to make changes while filming, in what Almodóvar terms the “adventure” of the shoot. “I need the freedom to change things on set, when the lights are up and the actors are ready to speak, because this is when my inspiration is at its peak. I need flexible actors at this point. Truffaut compared a shoot to a train with no brakes, and the director has to make sure that the train doesn’t come off the rails. A film is a living thing—this thing is boiling over, and you have to have a thousand eyes to take it where you want it. When one of your actors suddenly does something extraordinary, you’re the first to see it, you’re the first witness—and for me, those moments are the miracles that make directing films the passionate activity it is.” “In the end,” Almodóvar murmurs, “it’s all about passion. Without the passion, directing films just wouldn’t be worth it.” (DGA Quarterly Magazine)