Almadovar is always an incredibly sensual tragedy. This film is one of a number of films from the 90s, who dared to talk about the topic, which in the 90s it was customary to keep silent - AIDS infection. We see the fear of this epidemic in the same way as, say, in the Dallas Buyers Club or Gye. Although the paintings are connected only by a common theme, they are bold author's decisions.
I’m not going to write about it, I think others will do it for me. I will only note that it is quite simple - the viewer observes the belated formation of the main character after the accidental death of her son, who escapes from the capital, not afraid of memories. The main motif of the film is a brutal confrontation between life and death, the struggle of which is shown in almost every scene. The film celebrates the Mother Woman as the greatest creation of this world.
The film deftly balances between cheap melodrama and high artistic tragedy. The picture is made with mathematical accuracy, every detail is thought out - elements of clothing, which often gives vulgarity and screaming tones, the interior, full of cheapness and picturesqueness, even the emotions of the heroes are not accidental. Almadovar, like Balabanov, did not tolerate acting improvisation in the cinema, firmly clamping the plot in his own fingers.
What is typical for Almadovar, the tape is filled with small tragedies: the piercing loss of Manuella’s son Esteban, the hardships of Joy’s fate, Rose’s alienation from her mother, her illness, pregnancy and death, Lola’s mortal doom... This can take a long time.
For some viewers, the film, despite its touching, causes rejection, because it lacks naturalness. And that's a very accurate observation. Almadovar seems to move the beholder from the cinema to the theatrical, silicone, like the breast of Joy. It seems that Rosa and Manuella are the only heroines whose emotions are real, not katon, as the scenery, imitating reality. The rest of the characters are striking with their puppetry - they behave with a large amount of playfulness and through irony, aimed at both the outside world and themselves. “Silicon boobs, fake Chanel suit, what I have is a real feeling.”
A separate theme is the color and musical content of the picture. In the frames a lot of colorful colors, giving cheap pathos - poorly combined colors and ridiculous decor items. This further creates an entourage of artificiality and vulgarity. However, the main colors for Almadovar are red and black. This combination of colors appears on the screen when the camera dives into the garbage can, turning into a tunnel through which the main character once again runs away without saying goodbye. Or, for example, when Joy appears before the audience in the red curtain - there is something Lynchevsky. The music also makes goosebumps run on the body.
Very tender and sensual was the allusion to the "Stream "Desire", which is repeatedly demonstrated in the film.
I found the story wonderful. This picture is an incredible cocktail of beautiful visual, emphasized by tragedy and the trail of hope. A newborn child replaces the deceased, life conquers death, no matter how cruel it may be, and from all misfortunes you can escape through an endless tunnel, which the viewer sees repeatedly.
Almodovar, by virtue of his orientation in his paintings, always shifts the focus on the problems of women. Men often act as aggressors. Therefore, the philosophical phrase from the slogan that a woman is a part of every man is flatly played out by the presence of transgender characters in the film.
And it seems that their presence carries a cool right message like “don’t be afraid to change” or “be who you are.” But Almodovar shows too rosy that changing sex is normal. It seems to me that only a person who has changed sex and experienced hormonal imbalance after surgery can promote this in audiovisual creativity. I’m not saying that changing sex is a terrible thing. No, everyone is free to choose how and in what body to live. It's just that Almodovar doesn't consciously or unconsciously talk about the reality of gender change. After all, not everyone copes with the stress of a severe hormonal failure in the body, and because, as Irvine Welsh wrote in the story “Eurotrash”, they reach the handle and commit suicide.
It is not clear why the main character, who so easily throws herself into tears at the mere mention of her son, does not blame Huma Rojo for his death. On the contrary, she gets a job with her and makes friends with her. But in reality, post-traumatic syndrome eats a poor parent, so he begins to blame everyone for the death of his child. But let’s say that our heroine is philosophical about life and reconciled with her loss in such a short period of time. Why did she follow the guy who had donated her dying son?
And why would the main character even go to work in the theater? To justify the author’s idea that “every woman has an actress”? Why are men depicted as animals who either try to rape a transgender person or beg for a blowjob? This is by no means sexist resentment, it is a search for logical objectivity.
"All About My Mother" is a movie I watched with a clear sense of dirt, rejection and something else. And the more I tried to sort out my feelings, the more I realized how weak this film was.
A good film, seasoned with acting, does not need a lot of drama, it is enough one powerful problem, the rest will create the atmosphere, music and everything – the viewer already empathizes. In this film, the drama is not just a lot – it spills over the edge.
I think that P. Almodovar decided to choose a win-win option - to press all the strings of the soul of the viewer. Here the death of a child, and organ transplantation, and transsexuals, and HIV, the problems of the elusive youth of the actress, an unfulfilled career. Um, what's missing? Maybe a person's disease in the years? All right, we'll definitely add a Coke of 0.33. Free cash register!
If you chase 2 birds, you will not catch one. There’s so much drama, problems, negativity, the dynamics are so fast that you don’t feel anything for the characters. P. Almodovar achieved a completely opposite effect, and for the whole film the whole drama ceased to touch the viewer, because no matter how it was - you get used to it.
Despite watching all the characters for more than an hour, there is a clear sense of nebulous characters, very eccentric actions, illogical explanations, some stretchable explanations and decision-making.
Separate disrepute of the game of the main character - when I look at the sun for 1 minute, I have more tears, honestly.
3 out of 10
An amazing film filled with love for women, daughters, mothers, sisters, etc. In the film, women are shown “as is” without embellishment. Many thanks to Pedro Almodovar for the anthem of love for women, which he created in the form of the film “All about my mother”.
If you try to track the plot only from the point of view of “people”, then this film is a perverted melodrama with sometimes shocking circumstances, in the form of transvestite fathers. But if you try to plunge into it from the point of view of “ideas”, then this is a film about the incredible motherly love that can work miracles, if you look at it from the point of view of “ideas”, then Manuela by the effort of will after the death of her son seems to return to the past and relive the moment of Esteban’s birth (not for nothing the newborn is called the same), she again plays in the same play, again Lola, the husband of the first child, all exactly as it was 18 years ago, appears in the plot.
I would like to highlight two points separately.
First of all, when the four women were talking over three bottles of champagne, it seemed to me that all these 4 women were the same person, but at different times or under different circumstances, as if Almadovar was painting a portrait of a woman through these 4 characters... who is this woman? Is that his wife, sister... mother? Never mind. We see the portrait of the Woman as such, with all her pros and cons and you can watch it forever.
Second, there are only women in the film. The only full-fledged man is a son (as for any woman), the rest are more of a parody of the male family: either he is a husband whose wilting brain is not able to recognize his daughter, but continues to think analytically, i.e. perceives numbers: height and weight, and is also able to be jealous. Or it is an actor who sees the solution to all problems in a blowjob. Such a joke on men. In the response film Talk to Her, Almodovar rehabilitates the men and reveals their souls.
The same story ends with a miracle, Almodovar loves miracles and here motherly love saves a child from AIDS, the director claims love as an infinite force for creating miracles.
9 out of 10
Demonstration and demonstration of “dirty laundry”
After watching the movie, you realize that I will never watch it again. Once is enough to understand the desire of the director to show the viewer the “invisible” aspects of the life of Spanish inhabitants in the late 20th century.
At the same time, I would not appeal to the conditions of “non-freedom” of the Spaniards during the previous period of the Franco dictatorship. Too “simple” argument was chosen by many film critics, citing this very dictatorship and the desire of people to “break” its shackles. So what is breaking the chains? In showing us women who used to be men? Or in the strong masculine beginning of the main character, who, due to life circumstances, combined her son father and mother in one person and in which the male principle sometimes eclipses the female? And splashing on the screen scrambled phrases: “Suck me”, “No, I will not suck you”, etc., which causes only nervous laughs in the modern public. In real life, it was all under Franco. You can be sure. Only now there is an opportunity to openly demonstrate on the wide screen all these obscenities that have always been and at all times.
But why should the public be so outraged? We come to the cinema to take a break from the routine of everyday life, to enjoy the highly artistic images of heroes and heroines, to hear something more decent than we hear at every street intersection and in every corner. So no, it is necessary to make the viewer in the cinema feel all the despair of our life, spit into the soul, and we, the audience, after all this, urgently need to look for another movie. More sublime and spiritual.
The storyline of the film was struck by the routine with which organ transplantation of dead or early deceased young people takes place. If the fragments shown at the beginning of the film are a real cast of contemporary Spanish society, then I feel sorry for these people. And who will say after that that, that to save the life of a millionaire, doctors will not intentionally kill ordinary citizens who, by the will of fate, fell on the operating table? When does the very life and legality of transplantation in Spain just push for the possibility of obtaining human organs through criminal means? Almodóvar doesn't have a word about it in the film. But the attitude of the relatives of the deceased to the fact that their deceased relatives take organs for transplantation to other people is very well shown. For the main character of the film, this is also the norm. She is calm about the fact that the organs of her deceased son immediately go for transplant to another person. At the same time, doctors who went to the mother tell her that her son could not be saved. Maybe that's why he didn't want his organs for a richer patient. And the most amazing thing is that Esteban, after attending his mother's transplant seminar once, signs a paper in which he agrees to give his organs for transplantation after his death. Did he not sign his own death sentence? Having been in a car accident and being on the operating table, he has no power to change anything, and doctors are free to “cut” him to use his organs for wealthy clients. Total cynicism, deception and degradation of morality and ethics of human relationships.
Don’t tell me that these are all my thoughts and assumptions. If such a possibility exists in principle, then it is simply impossible to track its use in practice. It's all legal. Who's gonna check? The scary thing is that the film also shows it from a positive perspective. They say, watch how we save other lives at the expense of untimely gone “donors”.
As for the awards that the film has received in so many different academies and festivals, I see here the direct corporate solidarity of the professional community with the director, who, in their opinion, was unjustly deprived of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Festival in 1999. After that, an avalanche of undeserved awards fell on the film, in my opinion.
The film can be viewed once for reference purposes. You clearly will not get pleasure from watching, but you will get an idea of modern Spanish customs, philistines and state policy in the field of transplantology, and even in the decoration of fashion director Pedro Almodóvar. "Pleasant viewing."
We women agree on many things, so as not to be alone.
- Women are more tolerant. And that's good.
- We're just idiots and idiots.
When I started watching this movie a long time ago, I didn’t know that it was so popular and has a bunch of the most prestigious awards. It was a trick, I didn’t expect anything from him, and when I looked, I was delighted. The most famous director from Spain, Pedro Almodovar, shoots truly amazing and wonderful films that can be revised over the years.
Take this movie: it's on the list of the best I've seen - the top of Almodóvar's fame. Pay attention to how he shoots, what the atmosphere is, the entourage, the choice of actresses, the music - everything is perfect. The movie looks great and it is impossible to break away from it.
We see a single mother, Manuela. A terrible tragedy happens: she loses her only son. The woman returns to Barcelona, where she spent her youth. Here she meets the shadows of her past and everything returns to normal. It helps those who destroy the life of the one who destroyed it once.
- Like the Baba Yaga!
- Don't think of it, it's a little swollen.
- A little?! Where would I go with that face... Oh, what a salad, and how to live hurt. How will I be sucking...
- Don't go to work today.
The film is very strong and life-affirming. It doesn’t look like anything, so the movie is unique. I want to say that Almodovar is a genius, and I personally love his movie. Such an incredible story, and so interesting and unusual shown. The viewer gets into the ocean of female secrets, intrigues, dangers.
The main character is an incredibly inspiring character and I love her. The actress from Argentina Cecilia Roth won the hearts of the audience around the world, and the choice of the actress for the role of Manuela was more than successful. Together with her character we go through a foggy story, and Roth was the main face of this film. Antonia San Juan laughed the most, and her character was the most funny and warm character. Some of her lines will mix to tears, and I still remember them. Penelope Cruz was pleased to see such a young girl. And of course, the director could not but invite Marisa Paredes, his favorite. Her Blanche DeBois got it right.
This film is about love, about the female world, about the mistakes of the past and how everything in life is intertwined, how everything is fragile and can easily change, about the present and the past, about the fact that when one door closes, another will necessarily open, no matter what the terrible situation may be. Life will put everything in place.
All About My Mother is a 1999 Spanish drama from the talented Pedro Almodóvar. This film is in my gold, select collection and I love it. Everyone has a good mood and only good movies. Thank you.
Mom, could you go to the panel for me?
- I have done everything I could for you.
A very cool film by Pedro Almodóvar with a young Penelope Cruz, who also won an Oscar in 2000.
In general, Almodovar is a master not only of directing, but also an excellent screenwriter. He can twist even a simple story and add to it such situations that it will entertain and amuse you, and make you think about many things, and, of course, shock.
It was this film that Almodóvar brought him popularity outside of Spain.
And this movie, like all the other films of this director, is very controversial: you don’t want to see this side of life, but you sympathize with the characters. Watching naturally is very interesting, I would even say, in one breath. Of course, the Spaniards in general, and Almodovar in particular, do not have the same prejudices as the Russians. So if you're a prude, you might not even like the movie. But I am in favor of such a movie being accepted by the viewer with a hurrah. I think people in our country should start treating all minorities calmly. They are people too, they have their own stories, they can empathize with them.
Who is this woman?
- This woman is his father!
Manuela's 16-year-old son Esteban is killed. To fulfill his last will, she travels to Barcelona, in search of another Esteban, his father, better known as Lola. The boy's father is a transvestite, and Manuela is a former prostitute. Returning to Barcelona, she seems to fall into the past - into the environment from which she escaped many years ago.
In this film, there are many colorful women: a transvestite prostitute, a lesbian actress, a young pregnant girl who contracted HIV. Each of them has its own difficult fate, in which, despite all the vicissitudes, there is a place for kindness, hope and unforgettable humor.
The film is great, it looks in one breath. I can't guarantee you'll like it, but it will be remembered. I recommend it.
The film is unusual, surprisingly pleasant, with unexpected plot twists. This is the first painting by Pedro Almodovor that I have seen.
There are many antisocial heroes and marginal life situations, but the film does not look black, on the contrary, it is imbued with faith in good, in a prosperous ending. It seems that even the most degenerate people are capable of love, compassion and correction.
Heroes as a selection, deliberately do not invent:
A former prostitute who gave birth to a transvestite and hid all this story from her own son.
The son who tells his mother he will make his way through life would be a penis. What does that mean?
A terrible street girl of forty, which, it turns out, is not a girl at all, but a trans.
HIV-infected nun pregnant from trance (no longer surprised), all his short life dedicated to helping missing people.
That same trance is a lover of having children, a drug addict, an AIDS patient engaged in prostitution. Why did he think he'd be better off in a woman's body? Why is he running from everyone and everywhere?
That's just for the sake of analyzing such stories, I want to study as a clinical psychologist.
10 out of 10
“I feel with my skin, or lack thereof, this life, which is impossibly tenderly lethal. Is that possible? Should I? Or is it possible?
Dedicated to my mother...
Women are not the weaker sex. Weak floors are rotten boards ...
Faina Ranevskaya
“The world desperately needs compelling women, emotional, enthusiastic and lively, regardless of circumstances. Women who are not afraid to speak the truth and stand up for what they believe. In women who are intelligent, sensual and compassionate, who do not compete with men, do not humiliate themselves before them, and do not wage war against the stronger sex (or against other women), who see in people their true nature, the nature of people who thirst for a dignified life and love. (Marie Forleo)
My acquaintance with the work of Pedro Almodóvar took place many years ago. I remember how it is now: late at night there was a movie on the cable channel “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown”. My mom and I couldn’t get away from the TV screen, hypnotized, to the final credits. Shooted close-up, just like the stars of the first magnitude, dresses, heels, lipstick of “purple-eyed” shades did not obscure the really important. It was a "deep dive" into the female soul, the female subconscious. It seemed that someone found out from one of us the most secret and did not lose it, carrying along the way in handfuls, delivered whole, then placed in the magic sprinkler Ole-Lukoje and splashed through the camera. We have never seen anything like this before. Since then, a lot of water has flowed, the paintings of “the disciple of Goya, the heir to Buñuel, the spiritual brother of Lorca” have long been collected in a personal film library, and the taste of the first viewing is not forgotten.
I consider “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown”, “All About My Mother” and “Return” the director’s calling card and the best of the best! This is the Planet of Women created by the master - persistent, strong-willed, independent, temperamental, able to sacrifice, love, care, but also decide everything without the help of the strong half of humanity - or rather, in spite of its notorious power. “Oh, the sorrow of crying without a shoulder!” – it is time to exclaim after Marina Tsvetaeva? No, you shouldn't. The emotional background of the paintings of the Spanish lyricist and provocateur is replete with frank humor that shades the tragedy of situations. Sadness with happiness alternate among those about whom Vera Polozkova says with a certain degree of cynicism: “If you are crushed by a tram, you, of course, will cry out.” Once he crushes, two crushes, and then you get used to it.
How many Almodovorov bones combined with kilometers of film washed in absentia and alive, and his work still respond in a multifaceted cinematic space with an eternal echo of love, coming from understanding and admiring the female essence. "All About My Mother" is no exception to the rule, harboring the most radical ideas. Up to the medical report on the topic: “The function of transgression”. The problem of gender-generational boundaries ...” Does not this unrelenting interest of the public reveal a talented creator more relevant than any test?
Nuns, transvestites and transsexuals, prostitutes and other marginal personalities are skillfully shuffled with the director's hand in one common deck. Often hearing complaints that, having joined one "almodrama", you can not watch all the others, I object: you can not look, but ...
What happened once was once,
The soul is not forbidden to love.
I want to shine new eyes,
Unknown planets.
The excitement of sweet yearning
I've been taking it away again and again.
And I always look into the pupils,
To experience love.
(Constantin Balmont)
In the eyes of the heroes and heroines of this Oscar-winning film and really love is countless. Love and tears. Even when they reflect death, life around them does not give up. She urges us to start from scratch, to find new meaning, to believe in the possibility of a miracle. And continues to rampage with emotions and bright spots - blue, yellow, red, echoing the buttons on the machine at the transplant coordination center where Manuela worked.
Losing the most precious thing to gain. Leave to come back. History is woven of paradoxes, déjà vu, and still beautiful, like the creatures that inhabit it. It serves as a confirmation of the words of Joy (Agrado): "What I have real is feelings!" And Almadovarovsk heroines are feminine to the extreme, when it is not so paramount whether their forms and gender are natural, because feelings do not lie.
Tradition says that a boy imprisoned in a Catholic boarding house once secretly entered the confessional and listened to the confessions of several residents of the town of Calsada de Calatrava addressed to the padre. Since then, he sees through women, adoring everyone from a distance and not letting any into his heart. Whether true or not, Pedro Almodovar works with many actresses from film to film and chooses them with tenderness. Each of them could be called “the flower of passion” and “the flower of my mystery”. Men are casual and passable characters. Only women predominate - fragile persons, not bloated to the size of the American "Lady Liberty" and instead of torches of feminism waving eyelashes and elegant handbags. Only he Penelope Cruz achieves the status of hottest* and has a lute, hitting like an electric stingray, energy. Except that in the image of the quiet nun Rosa, an angel in a scarf, her inner design slightly humbled. Cecilia Roth, on-screen Manuela, is the epitome of a mother willing to follow her son's heart and his father's artificial breasts equally selflessly. Its circle of existence is outlined by two cities (Madrid and Barcelona) and three Estebans. Marisa Peredes, sharp minting of the face and manners elusively reminiscent of Alla Demidova, perfectly played Dymka (Uma), who with fanatical passion is devoted to the theater, but lost her way in the labyrinth of her own passions. Antonia San Juan is a shrill and heartwarming Joy. And even the representative Tony Kanto, who for the role of the mysterious and insidious Lola had to dress in mourning outfit, appeared to the viewer a fatal female figure, symbolically descended almost from the cemetery cross.
Overwhelming the audience with experiences, the brilliant Spaniard masterfully manages not only the color palette, but also the musical and visual range. Rapid movement along the tunnel seems to deliver us, bypassing the annual rings, to the core of not wood – “living flesh”, but soaring on an airplane raises not where “I am very excited” – to the extreme limits of the soul. Inverted with pain, the frame and the world of Manuela, who lost her son a moment ago, freeze, become static, and at the same time the effect is created that the scene lasts and stretches indefinitely. A continuous chain of coincidences, overlaps and intersections, no doubt, reeks of melodramatism, but melodramatism is sweeter and simpler than Almodovarovsk you will not see anywhere else! As you will not find and more subtly noticed by a man will accept undoubted femininity.
I would like to hope that the proprietary Planet of Women will reconcile two such different, forced to coexist with a number of civilizations - from Mars and Venus - at least in the short phase of landing on its surface.
* hot, hot, sultry (English)
The genius of any director, in my opinion, lies in his ability to ignore his essence. Like, know how to do new, unrelated to you - and enjoy. Almodovar - fussy, reckless, tactless-sensitive and perfectly sincere director himself erected a monument, justifying it with his own feelings, thoughts and experiences. It was his best film, and one of my favorite pieces of world culture. Long live the exceptions to the rule, and among them - "All about my mother."
If you do not drown in such bright colors and do not choke in your own tears from the music, you can feel the amazing feature of the film – it is stupidly like a poem about the most ordinary woman in the world. Imagine a script written by a poem, nothing will change. Manuela is a great mother, able to survive the death of her own son and get another one as a reward. And for Almodóvar, the incredible power of female power and her original pain are commonplace. Men can neither understand it nor stop it. And those lucky ones who became women are destined to look back on their past lives with a grin and get stuck somewhere in the middle between worlds, cherishing their undeniably female soul.
The tragedy of the female beginning is clear from the first frame. Esteban is a beloved son who wants to be a writer (who wants to create and create). Manuela is a mother who knows what it means to be the mother of a man who wants to be a creator. Manuela also knows that the word “woman” is synonymous with suffering, because she seems afraid to get close to her son and certainly introduce him to another important woman, his father (forgive me the smile on my face, okay?). This world is destroyed after Esteban's death, and now the mother's main mission is to still love her son as if he were alive. Manuela is ready for it. Her subsequent journey to get her son’s heart is proof of the beginning of eternal suffering (the funeral scene would be absolutely inappropriate here, because one should say goodbye to the heart, not the body). She went back to where it all began - to Barcelona, to almost native prostitutes, gays, transgender people, to find Esteban's father.
The mother is friendly with everyone, smiles in moderation, it seems that she sincerely loves people and spends on them the lump of love that Esteban did not get. People around the mother are also very optimistic. Dying nun Rosa, cheerful Agrado and actress Smoke. Their life from the outside is a burden that men do not dream of, for they do not know how to feel. There is not a hint of tragedy in this gaggy frame of their gatherings over a bottle of wine - which, in fact, half happened. Yes, suffering everywhere is no reason not to laugh. Almodovar here is like saying that any woman accidentally met can carry the same pain as Manuela.
The relationship with the boy’s father – Lola (the male name was left behind) – is the height of her suffering, her torment, her pain. She didn't tell Lola about his son because he was "like a plague" - angry, stupid and immensely selfish. But the boy was so eager to meet him that Manuela was ready to find him and, sobbing, tell him about his dead son. Tell her at the funeral of a friend that Lola also killed. And then to show him the son of this friend, whom he awarded with a deadly disease. There should be no feeling for this being - who should be loved in this world if it has destroyed everyone? That's right, his baby. A fateful tragedy - it was as if she had revived her son, having received him from the same vicious man.
Man is a symbol of chaos and destruction. The woman, especially the Mother, is creative, protective, suffering, not because she has to, but because there is no other way. Don Pedro doesn't deny men existence. It's just that he only populated his world with women because of the complexity of the object. It's more sensual, beautiful, emotional. Do not believe those who confidently consider Almodóvar to be a mainstreamist, and the film to be a Latin American soap opera, with which the great director was just having fun. "All About My Mother" is a needle that gently sticks you in and stays inside for a long time. If you are a prude, you will wipe away your tears and say, “Lord, what a vulgar thing!” If a man is angry. If a woman is empathetic. If you are Pedro Almodovar, who left his mother at 16 (like Esteban from his) – think and remember your mother, who died four weeks after the premiere of the film, happy and calm.
"All About My Mother" is a film of Spanish origin, in which the free mores of European society abound. This is my first experience of seeing Pedro Almadovar. Perhaps it is worth evaluating a few more works to form a whole, unbiased opinion about the style of the director. But for the best foreign-language film of 1999, I didn't get a sense of the depth of women's suffering.
The film does not stand out for outstanding acting work. In some scenes, there are fake emotions, from which a dissatisfied grimace emerges. Here it is worth saying that the author sees society liberated, free from prejudice. and indeed, the heroines do not condemn the work on the panel, but sympathize with fallen women. And especially those representatives of the weaker sex who have descended from the stronger. And the scene in the theater, when Joy is launched into monologous discussions about his life clearly demonstrates that in Spain, and in particular in Barcelona, people only the elderly do not tolerate silicone breasts and lips.
Perhaps All About My Mother is not a film about the suffering of the unfortunate Manuela who lost her son, but a call for society to enter a new age by throwing off the shackles of condemnation and renouncing biblical quotations about morality and righteous living. Everyone lives as they want.
'All About My Mother' is my favorite film and an absolute masterpiece of world cinema. This is an amazing cocktail of tragic lives, violent passions, strong-willed decisions, broken souls, comic adventures and women. Women are represented in all their forms!
This is an author's film, this is the inexorable style of Almodóvar!
The picture on the one hand is very dramatic and subtle, and on the other is rampant and bright. There is a lot of self-irony, self-knowledge, revelation. In the frame there is always an endless riot of colors, the dialogue is always sharp, and many phrases from this film have become aphorisms for me, applicable in life.
'I like to say good-bye to the people I love, even if I cry!'
You know, the women in Almodóvar's movies are so real. In any of them I recognize myself, my friends, my mother. And 'All About My Mother' is a film about us, about ordinary women with all our essence from top to toe. I think Almodovar knows us even better than we know ourselves.
'Success has no taste or smell, and when you get used to it, it seems that it does not exist'
Every actress in this film is a master of her craft. Marisa Paredes, Antonia San Juan, Cecilia Roth, Candela Peña and Penelope Cruz, I take off my hat, I admire you! They are great women and the women they play are just as great!
'- Women are more tolerant, that's good.'
'- We're just stupid... and idiots!'
The way they can empathize with each other, the way they understand each other, shows us how valuable friendship is to women. With whom, no matter how much we love friends, we can gather in the same room with champagne and ice cream, and like the heroines of the film, embark on a comical revelation about men and sex!
' How long have I not kept my dick in my mouth!'
Manuella's life story touches me to tears every time, although I've watched the film dozens of times. Her character is very sensual and very strong at the same time. The plot of what is happening madly hurts the soul.
Our Joy is just a world woman, despite the fact that she is not a woman at all! She will never reach for a word in her pocket, and I equate every utterance with the quotations of eminent philosophers. I would love to have such a great friend.
Pedro Almodovar drew special attention to the city of Barcelona in this picture. Thank you so much for that, because after the night shots of Barcelona in the film, I fell in love with this divine city. Especially Almodóvar managed to combine the picture in the frame and the music sounding at the same time, incredibly... It's amazing.
And in conclusion, I will say that very ironically Pedro approached the creation of the finale of the film, I could not imagine the best, when after all the experiences of friends, they again gathered together in the same dressing room, so strong and so beautiful, before going on stage, looking at Joy and Manuella, Smoke says so briefly and so meaningfully: '. . . ' .
10 out of 10
Such thoughts permeate through when you watch the film to the end.
I will not bend my soul - the film did not touch the strings in me, which played a huge number of people who consider it a masterpiece.
The only incomprehensible, illogical, inexplicable thing in my head, but fundamental to the film, was Manuela’s return to Barcelona. Why? !
With his explanations, the director did not convince of the plausibility and logic of what was happening. Or maybe Cecilia Roth, who played, in general, flawlessly the main character, did not convince me that she really wanted to find the father of her deceased son Esteban. It seems that this is the motivation of the heroine. Find the father of the deceased son, share the bitterness of the loss, feel the support... But. I didn't believe her purpose... But Lola believed - she convinced the viewer in his desire to see his son. Convinced with a couple of phrases... Convinced, contrary to my opinion, that this is a rare bastard.
Again, I turn on the logic of how desperate and panic Manuela left Barcelona many years ago without looking back, like Lot from a famous biblical parable, so as not to turn into a pillar of salt, and how easily she returned. I came back, supposedly, just to see, to show photos.
Why at the first mention of the name of Lola in the film, in the apartment at Joy, Manuel did not show much enthusiasm? Why is it that almost the entire film has shown us some kind of sluggish effort to find a job? I apologize, but after watching the film, I draw my conclusion from what I saw, and not from what Manuela said – the main character left Madrid for Barcelona in order to meet with her past. Friends, streets, dark corners... Perhaps even to blunt the pain of losing a son. Who I loved... Very -- there's no question! I shout loudly: "I believe!!!"
Yes, I respect Manuela as a mother because of her cardinal act. Being a woman, the “owner” of an ancient profession, pregnant from “Who?!” & #39; boiling in a cauldron of vice, evil and lust, while being at a fairly mature age, she found the strength to give up everything, give birth to a child, go to a strange city. Here you should pay attention to the excerpt of the play by Tennessee Williams “Stream of desires”, which vertically permeates the main plot of the film. In the play, after the departure of Stela (heroine of the play), the curtain drops. So, the young mother decides to abandon her husband and goes into all serious one. Just like the main character did. . .
She had a past from which she wanted to escape as far as possible as soon as there was hope for the future. For another future... Escape without leaving traces and taking with him the only, most valuable - the child under the heart. She lives for him, he was her life and support. He, in turn, loved her more than anyone else in the world, and he also wanted to become a writer.
The main value orientation of the main character is her love for her son. And even though she lost her native, she will more than give her maternal warmth to the child of another woman. The child who will become her Esteban in the future.
- Where have you been?
I followed the heart of my son.
I am so glad I am so sorry for the tautology. “Brassy and shoddy”, goofy, scary, incomprehensible way she causes a smile and demonstrates what it means to enjoy life when you do not have a single living place, and please others. Her love of life is very sensitively perceived through the screen. This is a sign of high acting skills... There's a minus... A lot of "below the belt" jokes... Much below the belt. Rumor cuts as if to me... The main priority of Joy? And there is nothing to think – she herself in the film about it and said – to rejoice and rejoice. Rejoice as a woman and rejoice as a woman. She said another memorable phrase:
“Being a real woman is an expensive pleasure, and you should not be stingy here, because you become a real woman only when you become like the one you want to be.”
Aptly said... As accurately as possible, given today’s realities, and given that Joy was a man once.
The film does not leave a bitter aftertaste. Here death gives life to one hero, and peace to another.
The themes of motherhood, love, death, gender relations, people’s attitudes towards prostitutes, transsexuals, homosexuals, and all this is shown without excessive drama. The film is filmed on heavy themes that have become bearing piles of this (as world film critics believe) masterpiece of cinema. But it was shot by Almadovar, a Spanish film genius. It was easy. It looks easy. But I'll forget him easily, too. This master did not reach my soul string. I didn't get it in this movie. I will never revisit Todo sobre mi madre. I'd better call my mom again and ask her how she's doing.
5 out of 10
The man wanders through the villages,
Konya is slowing down at the race,
B Burning huts come in -
He's probably a transvestite.
Pedro Almodovar is a textbook (if not the only one of its kind) example of a director whose voice was cut through solely through the “extermination of tyrants.” He can flirt as much as he wants, assuring fans that the very existence of Franco is in question for him - all his work claims the opposite, is imbued with the opposite (in the sense, "praaative"), dances from the opposite, shamelessly exploiting a certain (and quite representative) sample of socio-cultural "cannot" of the Caudillo era. And here is a curiosity: in Russian, the opposite can be synonymous with the vile, and then, according to some dislocated logic that binds together soil and fate, abomination, as a rule, prevails in any domestic artistic statement conceived as oppositional. But in Romance languages, the semantic fields of vile and protest do not intersect. They do not intersect culturally. Almodóvar, who devoted himself to the theme mostly marginal, was not a blackhead even in the days of “Ordinary copulations”, when he shot without doubles and doubles (and literally for three pennies) – an unrestrained drive finally untied and without remembering the breakaway Spain, a drive that perfectly coincided with his personal attitude, painted everything in the colors of the aniline spectrum. Of course, cheapness remained, but imitable immediacy made Almodóvar the leader of the culture of informal, street, square, opposing the “official” Spanish cinema (the former, insignificantly doubtful, with all its modest volume, perhaps the most high-browed in Europe of the seventies).
With the release (and subsequent triumph) of the film All About My Mother, other times came abruptly to Almodóvar’s career. The authorities of the cinema somehow suddenly (and all at once) saw that the hooligan fuse of the cheerful Spaniard faded away, and under the guise of his shocking thrash, the most orthodox glamour has long been hidden. And so he was quickly (until he got dirty at all) handed the coveted gold statuette, that is, ranked among the celestials and in absentia declared all his subsequent films masterpieces. Of course, one can argue about whether the moment was well chosen (later Almodovar will direct, for example, a very, very masterful “Return”), but the main thing, in my opinion, is clear: in purely cinematic terms, the Almodovarovsky Oscar-bearer is the ceiling of what he is capable of in principle as a director. On “All about my mother” was overshadowed by the maximum possible, magazine gloss, finally decorating the aesthetic of Almodóvar with its close-ups, reaching to fetishism obsession with female paraphernalia, the frame is flat and gaudy bright, but licked to the last pixel – neither give nor take the cover of Vogue. In addition, the dramaturgy was honed and verified (for the first time in the director’s career, the ends of his storylines did not hang sloppy in the apotheosis of the final, but were connected with an elegant bow), an excellent casting was conducted, wonderful music was written... That's it. However, it was in this first-class staged and played tape that directorial limitations and cultural proximity appeared especially clearly - shortcomings, alas, of those that you do not strangle - you will not kill.
Taking from film to film the same simple set of motives, plot twists and types (whores-gay transvests-comatos – HIV-infected), Almodovar consistently professes and preaches tolerance and vitality, while throwing overboard morality and truth. It's very Spanish. While throughout the Western world the prevailing view of a walking girl is mainly described by Pushkin’s formula “dead but sweet creature” (pulled, among other things, from London’s “Feast during the Plague”), in Spain the world of priestesses of love is attractive, carefree, colorful, self-sufficient (here is Pushkin in Madrid’s “Stone Guest” – Laura, a guitar, a night of lemon and laurm smells, a bright moon...) In fact, all the diversity of the world in Almodóvar is exhausted by the politically correct Western diversity, overshadowed by the wings of the Eternal Feminine (somewhere the Catholic upbringing of little Pedro must have affected!). Almodóvar’s man is a woman, all human in his men is concentrated in those hypostases for which the X chromosome or plastic surgery is responsible. The rest is rubbish and shame, disgust and perversion, genetic trash. Almodóvar’s humanism is the affirmation of life, whatever vile forms it takes. But there is no evil in the living. Only death is abominable, and that only in the absence of offspring.
In this denial (or rather misunderstanding) by the director of any form of decadence, you will inevitably wonder, and what, in fact, does Tennessee Williams – a singer of fading, withering, defeatism – do in his film? After all, if the quotation of “All About Eve” in “All About My Mother” is justified plot and stylistically, then “Stream “Desire” & # 34; crosses the film so unmotivated that the most experienced critics refuse to interpret. There is solidarity of minorities, not otherwise (because both playwrights are recognized gays). Here it is time to recall that while Almodovar did not touch the classics and worked with the mass cult (advertising mainly and soap operas), stylizations and quotes managed him much more like a whip - and burn. Because if the unforgettable Faina Georgievna said, it would happen: Well, at least they do not sing: Hurrah! Yay! Well... a hole!’, then in our time it is almost more talented than real culture.
It seems like a normal day. Except it was raining too hard.
They could just go home after the show. Watch movies, talk, joke, and maybe even argue a little bit. And then reconcile as quickly as they quarreled. It happens to people close to you. But... She returns to her apartment alone. A lot of water, very slippery in the streets.
A ridiculous accident on the road, and another unfinished fate. The fate of her only son...
This is the beginning of this Almodóvar film. And then... And then there's a lot. Death is always the end, the end of history. But no. This is just the starting point, the beginning of a long journey for a mother. Manuela sets out to find the father of her child, whom she ran away from years ago. I dreamed that he would never find her. You know, no one. Suddenly he's looking. Illogical?
You don't have to look for logic. She's in math, she's in physics. Almodovar is interested in life in all its diversity. Not lacquered, not emasculated. In the heap of ridiculous accidents, confusing and sometimes not very attractive stories. And, of course, in the eternal interweaving of fates. So cramped that, it seems, a little more - and can not withstand, you will suffocate in this human hive.
And, of course, there will be in the frame favorite Spaniard freaks: transvestites, pregnant women.
Immaculate girls looking at the world with the honey eyes of Penelope Cruz, prostitutes who successfully climb not only on their knees, but also on the theater stage. Do you think there are no such strange “oxymorons”? You're wrong. “There are many things in man. And it’s not always beautiful, and it doesn’t always smell good, said Pedro, a desperate and real journalist. But this statement is great for illustrating the worldview of the director, which he broadcasts to the audience.
Life is thick, compressed, he cuts into thick slices. And -- crunching -- to us, the audience. And it hums like high-voltage wires under tension, and tightens like a blueyushkin well. The rich color palette in the frame is ochre, red, emerald, music that makes the heart anxiously shrink... Life, I accept you with all that is in you. As his only and beloved child. And let critics wrinkle their noses - an aged fictionalist started his charm - Pedro's stories will never get bored. There is a place for everything except boredom and indifference. He who does not feel does not live. Conversely, the aftertaste of a dream, the plume of hopes, remains after a person leaves forever. Unless he really wanted something. So it was in "Bad Education," where the voice of the vanishing Ignacio sounded convincingly and passionately. The diary entries of Esteban, who wanted to know something about his father, trigger a complex mechanism of interconnected events.
Hyperbole, kitsch - Almodóvar's manner can be defined as you like. That's not the point. What others could have smeared into ten films, he puts into one. And very deftly combines the lyrical with the comic, impeccably mixing ingredients. That's Almodóvar's power. For example, the Czech Jan Sverak, a little earlier Pedro received a gold statuette of the American film Academy, could not achieve such organicity in the reflection of reality. And the film is kind, and the frame is built... But there is something missing, something small. And now it seems that both the hero and his story are all cardboard, all fake. But Almodovaru, you do. As you believe the postulate of the film: everything that personifies life is moral and has the right to exist, no matter how strange it may seem.
And, of course, believe him Manuele, played by an actress, previously seen only
in episodes. I played hard, at the limit. That's probably what the director wanted. Give more life on the screen, real and earthly. There is never too much of it...
The film is really about the female world - with a turn to the world of fears of being truly a woman. The main character ousted and suppressed such femininity in herself, and was just a mother. This gave her son the accumulation of needs and impulses in experiencing real feelings and the ability to express them, which he coped perfectly until his 18th birthday, and sublimated in writing research. He created himself in his own way and was ready to move on. But envy of his mother's penis, deep in the soul, cracked much earlier. That led to the tragedy when the son broke impulses to a woman who was not ashamed to express herself on stage. And who in him opened strong and pure impulses - but the taboo of the mother was stronger. It is better to die than to be above me in revealing myself.
Her journey is a journey into her subconscious and past that she wanted to complete. And she does. She meets what she created in Lola, and does not allow her creation to settle back into herself. She stops just when the ghost of Lola’s death once again wants to segment and semantize this reality and everyone gathered on the girl’s wires. The name Esteban is nothing more than the only masculine reality, which in the subconscious of these women was nurtured, but not realized. But the last child has every chance of success. In case the new mother still learns a lesson.
This is a great film for analysis and introspection. It is especially useful for those who have not yet self-identified in terms of gender role models and relationships, and self-identification at the level of sexual self-reflection.
To all actresses who play, to all women who play, to all men who play and turn into women, to all those who want to be mothers and mothers.
Pedro Almodovar undoubtedly admires women and always presents them with love and respect in his films. Even the end of such a sad picture he makes hopeful and optimistic. At the time, the film All About My Mother took all sorts of awards and awards, which, in my opinion, is very deserved. This creation is truly amazing, because when you prepare to watch, you expect the usual, standard situation: when a heartbroken woman seeks comfort in people. But closer to the middle, the tape takes an unexpected turn, new details are revealed - here the whole power of Almodovar as a director is hidden - he knows how to amaze the viewer: whether it is a riot of colors on the screen or a whirlpool of surging feelings and an unconventional vision of the denouement of the story.
Life presents the main character with the strongest blow, having selected the only and beloved son, for the sake of whose happiness she left the city of her youth - Barcelona many years ago. From what and why did she flee then, and why did she return sixteen years later? All this will tell us the piercing drama “All about my mother”.
Esteban wanted more than anything in his life to know the story of his birth, to hear his mother’s stories about his father, but he was not meant to know. We will listen to this story, the audience. As we contemplate and try to understand the single mother Manuela, we will evaluate her actions, relive all her tears and rejoice immensely in the acquisition of a new hope, a ray of happiness for a heartbroken woman.
I also liked the fact that the film as a whole does not focus on the mother’s experiences for the deceased son. She understands that it is necessary to move on and chooses to move forward, leaving behind depression and tears. Moreover, the picture gradually acquires new characters who (one way or another) need the help of Manuela much more than she can imagine. And a woman does not shut herself up, she wants to help everyone with all her heart.
"All About My Mother" deals with very complex and controversial issues: from organ harvesting for transplantation to the topic of non-standard sexual orientation. But despite all this, the film does not seem cumbersome and “heavy”, with the light hand of the author, even the girlfriend of the main character is called Joy.
7 out of 10
"All about my mother." Three words are perhaps the most important in each of our lives. "All about my mother." There is something mysterious, intimate and very secret in this name.
This was the second Almodóvar film I saw. The first, Open Embrace, failed to penetrate. But “All About My Mother”, immersed in a variety of sensations, for a long time attracted my attention to the work of this director. The initial impressions were scattered. I liked it and didn’t like it at the same time. However, his story and images did not let go for a long time. No heart, no mind. After reviewing the film a few months later, he made it one of his favorites and a personal list of masterpieces of cinema.
And even though I've seen almost all of Almodóvar's films, All About My Mother, I think it's the best of his career. At least for me. And never forget the feeling that he leaves behind - a clot of light in the soul. Light mixed with bitterness and tartness. It’s one of those movies that you can say has a soul. One who teaches forgiveness, understanding and strength to live. Endless anthem "Resistire" against the backdrop of a world swamped by winds.
And although his genre is billed as a melodrama, I would disagree. It's a tragifarce at the best incarnation of this genre. The line between tragedy and farce is so thin that these principles constantly flow into each other, almost merge, and eventually form an amazing cocktail that must be savored and enjoyed every sip. Suck through a straw.
Again in the lens of Almodóvar are women played by brilliant Spanish actresses - Cecilia Roth, Marisa Paredes, Penelope Cruz and Antonia San Juan. If you will, this is the main theme of his work: women. It's all about women. Everyone wants to be a woman. Even some men.
Speaking of men. Things with them are very interesting. Esteban, a young man who dreamed of becoming a writer, dies in the beginning. Rosa's father is helpless and is in the care of her mother. Manuela's husband is transgender. Is his image not an expression of the director’s caustic irony over the stereotype of a strong man?
Men in the film are weaker than women, and women are left alone with their own loneliness, without support, forced to play the role of the stronger sex.
Each of the four films has its own tragedy and broken life.
Manuela first lost her husband, who turned her life into hell, then her son, the only support in life. The nun Rosa, a naive child, ready for self-sacrifice and unaware of the horror of the world, dies because of her own idealism. Joy, most of her life worked on the panel, rude to the tongue, constantly pouring obscenities, remains lonely, unnecessary to anyone, and her soul is not in demand. Actress Dymka, who lost the joy of success, does not feel happiness in life, chained by love for an ungrateful person. They will find the strength to resurrect each other with the warmth of human relations. The call to keep the inner warmth and to protect the neighbor from the cold winds of the world, to warm him - one of the central motives of Almodóvar's work, in my opinion. It's all about my mother. That's "Return." About it "Tie me up!"
And the mosaic of disparate destinies will gather into one. And each of the heroines will seem to embody one of the sides of the image of a woman. Mother, actress, saint, sinner – and all this is a woman, an amazing creation of God. It's all about Woman. Its appearance is on the matrix of the universe.
And what's also very important is that it's a postmodern piece, and the plot of the film consists of allusions to various creations of the past, especially All About Eve and The Streetcar Desire. Before watching All About My Mother, it is advisable to familiarize yourself with them in advance in order to fully enjoy all the layers laid down in the film.
It seems to me that Almodovar has managed to create a great cinema, without exaggeration a great one, where the lines between holiness and sin, sublimity and dirt, tragedy and farce are so thin that they cannot be distinguished. Is this not our life as it is? And maybe the film is an impulse of life itself, its imprint in the world of art? Almodóvar managed to capture her breath.
Life ... is also a woman. "Vida" in Spanish. Also mother. Also a saint. Also a sinner. Also an actress. Life. The great tragedy to which each of us is doomed
10 out of 10
If you stay, I will tell you the story of my life.
It is difficult to write a review of this film, it is too bright, eventful and unusual. Reluctance to dissect it into parts and disassemble the plot, all this has been done before me many times, so I just want to talk to you a little bit about the director and share my impression of his work.
My acquaintance with Almodovar takes place in a chronological spread - "Return", "The skin in which I live", now "All about my mother". And the more I plunge into this crazy world, sometimes tragic to tears, sometimes causing a smile, the more I fall in love with it. Because what is our life? On a daily basis – comedy, champagne, jokes, moments of happiness and love, but if you embrace it in its entirety, you see only a deep tragedy – broken fates, breakups, serious illnesses, abandoned children, and eventually death. And all this is naturally woven into the films of a talented Spaniard. His style is truly inimitable, his characters are transvestites, prostitutes, drug addicts, gays and lesbians, pregnant nuns may not be at all like us, but you understand them, you sympathize with them, they become close. Just imagine what would have happened if a film was made in Russia based on any Almodóvar plot - it would have turned out to be a dirty and hopeless treshak, after which you would only climb into the loop. But life is different in Madrid and Barcelona, and the so-called “scumbags of society” are simply desperate and confused people who elicit sympathy and sympathy rather than disgust. No truly happy and loved person will go to the panel, spend hundreds of thousands on sex change, ruin their health, sit on a needle, do not want to escape to El Salvador to be killed there. Even Lola, in the face of which the main character throws a loud "You are not a person at all, you are a plague", does not seem a monster, her / him is just damn sorry, everyone would like this person to live a calm, maybe even boring by the standards of some life, but that he did not die of AIDS, so he did not find out that one of his sons died under the wheels of a car, and the other got his terrible diagnosis. Something must have been broken in him since he was born. Although the life of a layman also does not guarantee absolute happiness, I remember the father of the heroine Penelope Cruz, who did not recognize his own family - and it is difficult to say whose end is worse.
Another distinguishing feature of the Almodovar style is humor. Jokes in his films do not seem vulgar, although they often feature primary sexual characteristics. Because they are not far-fetched, not sucked out of the finger - in any close female company, such sharpness slips through. In general, I am amazed at how this man is subtly versed in women, because all his films are dedicated to them - mothers, saints, sinners, all aspects of female nature.
And again, in the spirit of Almodóvar, love and hope still triumph in the film. In the new Esteban, Lola and Rosa continue their lives, partly the other Esteban who wrote the story "Todo sobre mi madre" and gave his heart to another person, this child eventually becomes a consolation for Manuela. And such an end can rightfully be called happy, although tears stand in front of our eyes.
10 out of 10
Manuela was left alone. The absurd and terrible death of her only son Esteban has ruined her life and it seems that all the colors around her have faded. Nothing will comfort this woman now, tormented from within by grief and pain. However, Manuela will have a lot to experience, because life is such a complex thing and it is impossible to predict anything in advance.
The 1999 film All About My Mother became one of the most famous and highest-grossing works by Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar. With this picture, caressed by both viewers and critics, the director confirmed his status as a “female director”, singing in it the Woman both as a mother, madly loving her son, and as a passionate bacchanka, sinner and saint at the same time. This picture is an unconditional anthem to a woman, shot in a typical manner for Almodóvar: with an abundance of storylines, keeping in constant tension before a bright denouement, with the extravagant background of Manuela’s past and the powerful acting of Cecilia Roth (Manuel), Marisa Paredes and Penelope Cruz, who appeared in the picture in an unusual role.
The work of the operator Affonso Beatu in the tape is surprisingly beautiful and metaphorical, and the soundtrack of Alberto Iglesias literally cuts to the bone with its melody and lyrical tone.
I recommend this beautiful film to all, without exception, and especially to connoisseurs of European cinema in general and Spanish cinema in particular.
10 out of 10
Manuela, a nurse in the surgical transplant unit, loses her only son, Esteban, who dies under the wheels of a car while trying to get an autograph from the famous actress Huma Rojo. Not only does Manuela’s tragedy persist, but it escalates further after she agrees to use her son’s heart to save another person’s life. And not resigned to the loss, she goes in search of the father of her dead child to retroactively fulfill the will of his son, all his life dreamed of seeing a parent with whom Manuela has not met for 20 years.
For all the apparent delusions of the subsequent development of the plot in this spicy and exotic melodrama, it is not the plot twists, the action and the characters that come to the fore, but the feelings. Despite the most incredible vicissitudes in the fates of the characters, thanks to the openness of emotions and a peculiar sense of humor, the film overcomes the boundaries of the almost parody extravagance that distinguished Almodovar's tapes in the past. This time, the Spanish nugget makes a film exclusively about women, forcing almost all men to take their appearance: in fact, the only full-fledged man here remains the dying at the very beginning Esteban.
Unlike the characters of the picture, who appear mostly in travesty images, humanism and tolerance according to Almodóvar cannot mutate or degrade. The director stands up for small human weaknesses, which are not so much a provocation as a challenge to standardization and a life nightmare. And those who oppose it are trying to preserve their nature.
It would seem that a story in which one fate is more improbable than another, at any moment can turn into a farce, turning the exquisite author's kitsch into a real thrash. But the degree of passion is so high that the soap genre becomes a model of high art. The pathologies of melodramatic filling, coupled with clown attractions of transsexuals, eventually acquire, oddly enough, the respectability and value of rarity - a masterly made product of piecework.
Almodovar played the melancholy plot as an antique drama - on coturns, or high heels, to use the title of his other film. As an equalizer, he managed to walk along the very edge between high tragedy and cheap comedy, genius and profanation. According to the unanimous recognition of critics, the result can be considered the quintessence of the work of the “romantic extremist”, who accumulated here all the best that was worked out in the past.
The sincerity of the feelings making their way to the surface from under the buffoon’s outfits paradoxically made this unlikely story close to the widest audience. After the award for directing at Cannes and the Oscars, Almodovar has officially become the number one director, at least in his home country.
Thoughts in the air or how to find a reason for delight
It seems to me that I am hopelessly stupid and superficial, since I cannot feel a movie of this kind. Every time I watch such supposedly (or perhaps not supposedly) deep-thinking films, I ask myself the same question – how in all this other people (apparently more creative and gifted than I) find at least some sense and reason to admire such pictures.
For some reason, they are constantly trying to suggest to us: if you do not understand the whole idea, it is because a movie is for a viewer with a deeper inner world, not for people like everyone and only a select few can appreciate it. I absolutely do not like this approach, although I am ready to admit that I am really not so smart.
Yes, no, as for the plot and drama of the situations shown - everything is clear here, but it does not touch it well and does not push for reflection and in general, apparently, I should not watch such an art house at all.
And everything would be nothing, there would be no such review, if not for a line with a lot of awards, as well as a lot of enthusiastic reviews, which simply go into a terrible resonance with my impressions of what I saw. And all I can think of is: How so? For what?
And in such moments, I want to get into the head of at least one enthusiastic person and see this film through his eyes. Maybe I really miss something important in my life, if I do not know how to understand such masterpieces.
P.S. For those who are particularly “sick” for this film, I would like to emphasize that no one’s feelings and views in any way wanted to hurt or offend, these are just my thoughts out loud. So, all good, warm and sincere.