Volver, 2006. Written and directed by Pedro Almodovar. Starring Penelope Cruz, Carmen Maura, Lola Duenas, Blanca Portillo, Yohana Cobo, Chus Lampreave, Antonio de la Torre, and Carlos Blanco.
Now showing at the Edina Cinema.
As a strong, hot wind rages in a La Mancha graveyard, as groups of determined women scrub and brush down the marble headstones of the men who have proceeded them in death. The women have their hair pulled back, their skirts rustle in the harsh, hot winds of La Mancha and they work, work, work, struggling to keep the dust off the headstones, which is a task of almost hilarious futility for all the wind that rages through the countryside. The men are at rest, enjoying what Borges described as sleep and indifference. Alive, the women carry on, laughing, crying, haunting, farting… and carrying the weight of this miraculous world on their shoulders. This is Almodovar’s world.
Volver is the latest film by perhaps our greatest living filmmaker, and though it’s a slight movie by his lofty standards, lacking perhaps the intensity and surprise of classics like Talk to Her, it is nonetheless a supreme entertainment. Ostensibly a murder mystery, an homage to Hitchcock (with a score that reminds us of Bernard Herriman) and Mildred Pierce had it been really a picture about women (and not eventually dismissive of strong women), Volver is like many of Almodovar’s films–informed by movies, by art design, by color, by theater, but most of all, and most importantly, by the torrent of emotion that grips each and every character and undoubtedly the director himself. Volver is melodrama, but it is never turgid. Volver flatters its female characters (some of whom are murderers), relies on some bathroom humor, gives us great bursts of bright color, and suggests, most prominently, that murder and incest take a backseat to the vicissitudes of friendship and family. It is one of the best films of the year, and a movie whose technical accomplishments, sharp writing, and spot-on acting would have made a lesser director shoot to the front of film magazines and art-house accolades in an instant. As it is, since we’ve become accustomed to Pedro’s work, Volver is likely to vanish from theaters in a few weeks, forgotten for the doggrel that takes up space and counts as decent filmmaking.
The plot is as typically bizarre as anything that springs from the mind of Almodovar: three years prior, a house fire killed the mother and father of Raimunda (Penelope Cruz) and Soledad (Lola Duenas). Their parents were a supposedly happy couple who were locked in a loving embrace as the flames devoured them. After polishing their folks’ headstone, the girls, with Raimunda’s daughter Paula (Yohana Cobo) in tow, go to visit their addled aunt, sister of the deceased woman. They discover that this poor lady believes that she is being visited on occasion by the ghost of their dead mother. A childhood friend, Augustina (Blanca Portillo) whose mother disappeared on the same day, lives across the street and attests to the hauntings. Returning to Madrid, Raimunda and Paula run afoul of the husband, a drunken, masturbating soul who tries to screw his daughter one night in the kitchen. The girl responds by driving a knife into chest, killing him. Like Mildred Pierce before her, Raimunda will not allow her daughter to hang for this crime–instead, she cleans up, hides the body in a freezer (later to be buried on the riverside with the help of a local whore), and opens her own restaurant.
Ignoring its deeper meanings, Volver is, above all, a blast. Its plot twists are pure Almodovar, nearly ridiculous events that are at once shocking and hilarious, like the murder punctuated by Cruz having to tuck her husband’s cock back into his pants, or explaining away a smudge of blood on her neck to a male neighbor as ‘female troubles’. Indeed. Kisses are amplified into loud smooches, tears flow like the mojitos Raimunda serves at the restaurant, memories are shared with wide-eyed glee, and in no time we find ourselves caught in the friendships of these women, hoping for their emotional success–even if it means getting away with murder. Almodovar is on record that he consider’s Cruz’ bustline to be the greatest in the world and films this treasure with as if it were the most beautiful sculpture in Europe–a wonderful concession for a gay man to give to his heterosexual audience members. Little scenes stand out–the sisters sitting opposite their cancer-stricken friend, offering them pot while the daughter lounges on a chair, and the mise-en-scene is startling for its beauty. At their Aunt’s funeral, Soledad and Augustina are the ‘primary mourners’ and walk into a room and are converged upon by fan-fluttering ladies dressed in black, shot from above, like moths attracted to a loving flame.
There are murders and incest here, but unlike, say, Hitchcock and Pierce, Almodovar is intrigued only by the way these women survive such turmoils. And in how they learn to forgive and move on. Ultimately, Volver–Spanish for ‘The Return’–is a film of forgiveness. Pedro has returned to the La Mancha that rejected him, his actress Carmen Maura has returned to his loving fold after a notable split many years ago, and the characters have returned to caring for the people who have hurt them, from the mother to even the man who is murdered, carefully buried in a spot that he once loved.
There has been a number of critical backlash against Almodovar’s seeming disregard for men in his films, especially here, and yet I can’t help but wonder what the fuss is all about. This is a film about women, just as Apocalypto or Flags of Our Fathers are about men. Penelope Cruz’ tough stance against the murder of her husband is little different than Apocalypto’s Jaguar Paw’s fighting to return to his wife, who isn’t anything more than a womb trapped in a hole in the ground.
But Almodovar’s intense respect for his characters makes this film shine brighter and with more joy than anything I’ve seen this year. From the senile, beautiful old Aunt that he lovingly frames behind shiny glasses, to the dignity of her friends, including a whore, not with a heart of gold but who is interested in her neighbor’s life and seeks to get ahead herself, honestly and with dignity. This, in spite of a plot whose inner workings hinge on incest, murder, lying, and all the other bittersweet confections in Almodovar’s chocolate box. In the end, however, mothers and daughters fight and forgive, and the ghost is a creature of nearly unbearable kindness. Volver is a beauty, a film that wears its kindness proudly on its sleeve.
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