Todo sobre mi madre

What I like most about Almodovar's films, this one in particular, is the way he will grab you and pull you into a world you would not normally know and then, confront you with people's lives, emotions, relationships. Manuela, the mother who at the beginning seems so in control and clinical, earnest in her love and with the best intentions for her son, is shown to be much like you and me... full of doubts, questions, a need for answers and trying to understand how her life course has brought her to the present day and made her who she is. Barcelona in winter is richly filmed and serves as a backdrop for the renewing of old satisfying friendships and the budding of new ones, happening simultaneously and somewhat unexpectedly. It rings so true. The slow realisation that we are never really complete, that it's the people we love and live with, or avoid and later regret having done so, that makes us who we are. Almodovar sees the human condition and paints it carefully in this film.

What a genius Almodovar is! Who else could take such esoteric material and make it not only enjoyable, but relatable. It takes a lot of chutzpah for a male director to swan dive into the gulf of womanhood (I can't believe I just wrote that) and emerge with such truth, HUMAN truth. While the characters of this film seem to represent certain female archetypes, they still flow organically through the ingenious plot. Almodovar shows us that any taboo subject can be tackled without it being exploited when it is done with a compassionate heart. The sheer WARMTH of this movie is what makes it a stunning success. The performances in this film are unforgettable. Cecilia Roth is so dazzling and real, and heartbreaking. But only a genius like Almodovar can break our hearts but still give us hope.

One thing is for certain: you sure can't accuse Pedro Almodovar's `All About My Mother' of narrative timidity. In its relatively brief 102-minute running time, it provides a literal smorgasbord of sensational plot elements: a fatal car accident, a dead teenaged son, organ transplantation, transvestite prostitutes, lesbianism, pregnant nuns, drug addiction, AIDS, Alzheimer's, and death by childbirth – more than enough juicy elements to warm the heart of any lover of classic melodrama or daytime soap operas. Even if the film had dealt with only half of these issues, it would still be a challenge to maintain some sort of overall focus. As it is, we spend most of the movie staring in head-scratching amazement at the sheer audacity of the enterprise.

Certainly, the critics have not been stingy in heaping effusive praise on the work and both the Motion Picture Academy and the Foreign Press Golden Globe committee have echoed that praise by bestowing on the film their coveted awards for Best Foreign Language Film of 1999. But does the film really merit all these critical hosannas and kudos? Not by a long shot! Jaded as we may be by the deadening predictability and lack of originality that, sadly, define the majority of films released each year, it is, nevertheless, still incumbent upon us not to be bowled over by a film that takes the alternate path of undisciplined bizarreness. `All About My Mother' cries desperately to be a moving and important study of women's roles in society, but, by trying to compress so many of the eccentricities of life into one story, the film leaves us more incredulous and perplexed than stimulated and touched.

One element does succeed brilliantly, however, and that is the outstanding performance of Cecilia Roth in the leading role of Manuela, an attractive 38-year old mother who, upon the sudden death of her child, is compelled to return to the dark past she long ago fled and to seek some sort of redemption. She provides us with the warm center of human compassion this film so desperately needs to keep it from becoming a completely clinical exercise in absurdity. Streamlined perhaps, her story might have made for a fascinating and incisive film. But Almodovar is so busy loading up his film with rather obviously drawn parallels that we really never believe a minute of it. The film is rife with ineffectual and pretentious allusions to `All About Eve' and `A Streetcar Named Desire,' as the movie characters' lives take vaguely similar paths to those of the characters found in those works. And the finale, in which Manuela's maternal affections find a new object to latch on to, seems coy and artificial – an attempt to leave the audience on an emotional high after all the misery and heartbreak it has witnessed in the course of the film. The whole enterprise, ultimately, seems hopelessly artificial.

That artificiality at least justifies the gorgeous look of the film. Almodovar has, as always, splashed across the screen his usual array of brightly colored walls, furniture and clothing that makes the film seem to exist in a world located somewhere between realism and surrealism. This bold visual palette is always one of the joyous fringe benefits that accompanies the watching of an Almodovar film.

Unfortunately, in this case at least, he hasn't created a film with a story, cast of characters or theme to match in quality or intensity the glorious, many-hued background he provides. Despite all its many awards and its extraordinary critical acclaim, `All About My Mother' doesn't hold a candle to Almodovar's truly wonderful previous film, `Live Flesh.' Check that one out instead and see the difference.

After a tragic family crisis Manuela (Roth) escapes her current life by fleeing to Barcelona where she hopes to find her former lover and her son's father.

Having been a big fan of Volver I decided to check out another Pedro Almodovar classic and was not to be disappointed as I was brought into another strong family drama that adds the deftest of comedy touches that never overshadow the dark and dramatic lives of the characters.

Cecilia Roth stars as central protagonist Manuela who looks for some escapism after seeing one too many troubles at home and when disaster strikes she flees to Barcelona where she hopes to discover where her son's father and her former lover is. Lola, a transvestite is not aware of Esteban which as the film progresses delivers numerous dramatic consequences and tear threatening montages.

As writer and director Almodovar seems to be able to cement the right dramatic input at the right time, delivering a supposed expectancy only to strive to shock the audience with a powerful emotional twist or an unthinkable idea. To say what the unthinkable idea is in this 1999 release would be to spoil a well worked powerfully controlled heartbreaker, which would cost the true value of a picture purposefully identified with its drama.

We have underage pregnancies, traumatic and unexpected death, family rivalry, former lovers, drug abuse and fiery working relationships that juxtaposed, all cement this in the drama genre and given the context they are used in add to a great sense of realism. The way everything threads together is nicely worked with only a few hitches.

Roth's character a former actress is conveniently placed in a theatre to see what will follow to recapture the past, the absence of the father for such a long time distances some emotional connection for the audience and no matter how hard the plot works to convey its powerful message it never feels as compassionate and as emotionally connected as Volver.

This film does boast some tremendous performances. A young Penelope Cruz would go on and generate her international stardom with this performance as the young worker who is pregnant. Cecilia Roth carries the picture with her constant driven attitude to not look back and thrives on living in the moment. The supporting cast all lend a strong array of drama and some good comedy from Antonio San Juan as Agrado, especially her scene on stage.

The cinematography and usage of various places keeps the feisty drama alive. The dreadful scene with the prostitutes, the stage for the replica of A Streetcar named desire and the terrible incident in Madrid all combine to make this a wonderful drama.

Strong well performed and written drama 8.5/10

Very few directors, since Bunuel, Fassbinder, Lindsay Anderson and Roman Polanski, have been able to translate their own, very private universes, to the screen. That is why, it divides audiences in such a radical way.

You love it or you hate it. I think, that is the final objective of an artist, to express their view, to give us their own version of the world we live in. It enriches us, it makes us more aware of the million faces of human nature. Thanks to Almodovar we're allowed to feel identified with, what we may consider, marginal characters. What a different experience is to sit through an Almodovar film and a Ron Howard film for instance. Almodovar remains, becomes part of us, Ron Howard's vanishes as we're leaving the movie theater.