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shadowkatI changed my layout. It's cleaner, easier for me to read, and yes swiped from someone on my flist who has a similar one.
Had an interesting chat with my mother tonight, which I bring up because I just finished watching Volver by Pedro Almovadar - a story about mothers. Almovadar is an interesting director, and has a bit of an obsession with mothers seeking forgiveness from their daughters. He's also one of the few male directors who likes to create strong and diverse female characters. Almovadar's films tend to focus on women, there are very few men in them. This film had one male character, who is killed early on, and a few male extras or three line speaking parts, but that was it. None of the men in the movie had more than maybe five lines and even less screen time. The film was populated almost entirely by women, and while male actions affected these women, they focused more on their relationships with each other. He was merely the catalyste.
My chat with my own mother had zip to do with this topic. We were talking about how it is possible to enjoy someone else's company, yet disagree with their views. That you could love someone dearly, even consider them a close friend or mentor, but find aspects of their personality or beliefs to be rephrehensible. Also how important it is to not to judge others or oneself too harshly. I've been admittedly beating up on myself again. This past week was quite brutal in that regard. So the conversation with my mother was rather cathartic. In that aspect - it fits the themes of Almovadar's film, Volver.
According to the description on the netflix disc envelope, Volver is about a woman who visits her daughters and granddaughter in spectural form and provides them comfort and reassurance.
She does this as a means of resolving the things she was unable to resolve in her life and to a degree seek their forgiveness. I'm not sure this is an accurate description, since the mother is clearly not spectural and not dead - they only think she is.
The story revolves around two sisters - one who runs a restaurant and one who runs a beauty salon. Both have at the beginning of the film recently lost their mother. Penelope Cruz's character Ramriadu (sp?) was on the outs with her mother. We're not sure why. While her sister, Solida was rather close to her. Ramriadu in contrast seems to be closer to her Aunt Paula, whom she's named her teenage daughter after.
It's supposed to be humorous though I did not find it to be so. This is a problem I have with a lot of Almovadar's films - I don't find them funny, with the possible exception of Women on a Verge of a Nervous Breakdown - which was hilarious. I found the film touching and comforting in places, but not laugh out loud funny. Have come to the conclusion that humor is a subjective thing. I make jokes all the time in my lj and they appear to go over people's heads and I find things on tv to be hilarious, while others don't and vice versa. I think when laughter becomes a shared experience its magical and does not happen as often as I'd like. In Almovadar's case - my difficulty may be with the translation or reading the subtitles. Humor doesn't always translate well.
Cruz is quite good in Volver, but so are the other actors, no one quite leaps out at you. They are equally good and it is an ensemble film. The story focuses on Cruz's character though - her relationship with her daughter and her mother, and how the two relationships, we learn later, intersect and echo each other. At one point, Cruz's mother tells her granddaughter - that she'd lost Cruz years ago, her daughter had become distant and appeared to stop loving her. She told her grandaughter - make sure your mother feels your love, she needs it, and you. It's a horrible thing for a mother not to feel her daughter's love.
Watching this reminds me of my own relationships with my mother and grandmothers, one that I did not love enough, and one that I almost love too much. And of course my mother - who has always made me feel safe no matter where I am or what I have done. Volver - got across that same feeling, of safety. We so often associate it with fathers, but often mother's can make us feel safe as well, particularly at our most vulnerable.
Cruz's character in Volver arrives home from work, to find her daughter waiting at the bus stop for her, soaking wet in the rain. She asks why she's there. The daughter, Paula, states, I've been waiting for you to get home. Then shows her why. Cruz takes control of the horrific situation she finds, protects her daughter, and manages to fix it somehow. Later, towards the end of the film - after her own mother apologizes for not being able to do the same for her, Cruz forgives her mother and tells her she'd missed her and needs her.
I thought watching this, about my own mother, who can keep me talking on the phone for two hours at a stretch. But, who also will listen to my babble. As children, my brother and I, when my Dad was out of town, would often join my mother in her bed - terrified from a horror flick or whatever imagined monsters we'd seen in our separate rooms. My mother always made us feel safe. I remember doing it after Jaws and Poltergeist.
The story in Volver, though, is not just about mothers and daughters, it's about women and how we support and help one another. Cruz's neighbors help her with the restaurant. Her sister and mother work together to cut and shampoo women's hair. There's a kindness in the film that one does not see very often. A warmth that follows you long after. It is what I'd call a happy film. Comforting even.
It came out a few years ago so is no longer in theaters, but you can rent it via netflix or blockbuster.
Had an interesting chat with my mother tonight, which I bring up because I just finished watching Volver by Pedro Almovadar - a story about mothers. Almovadar is an interesting director, and has a bit of an obsession with mothers seeking forgiveness from their daughters. He's also one of the few male directors who likes to create strong and diverse female characters. Almovadar's films tend to focus on women, there are very few men in them. This film had one male character, who is killed early on, and a few male extras or three line speaking parts, but that was it. None of the men in the movie had more than maybe five lines and even less screen time. The film was populated almost entirely by women, and while male actions affected these women, they focused more on their relationships with each other. He was merely the catalyste.
My chat with my own mother had zip to do with this topic. We were talking about how it is possible to enjoy someone else's company, yet disagree with their views. That you could love someone dearly, even consider them a close friend or mentor, but find aspects of their personality or beliefs to be rephrehensible. Also how important it is to not to judge others or oneself too harshly. I've been admittedly beating up on myself again. This past week was quite brutal in that regard. So the conversation with my mother was rather cathartic. In that aspect - it fits the themes of Almovadar's film, Volver.
According to the description on the netflix disc envelope, Volver is about a woman who visits her daughters and granddaughter in spectural form and provides them comfort and reassurance.
She does this as a means of resolving the things she was unable to resolve in her life and to a degree seek their forgiveness. I'm not sure this is an accurate description, since the mother is clearly not spectural and not dead - they only think she is.
The story revolves around two sisters - one who runs a restaurant and one who runs a beauty salon. Both have at the beginning of the film recently lost their mother. Penelope Cruz's character Ramriadu (sp?) was on the outs with her mother. We're not sure why. While her sister, Solida was rather close to her. Ramriadu in contrast seems to be closer to her Aunt Paula, whom she's named her teenage daughter after.
It's supposed to be humorous though I did not find it to be so. This is a problem I have with a lot of Almovadar's films - I don't find them funny, with the possible exception of Women on a Verge of a Nervous Breakdown - which was hilarious. I found the film touching and comforting in places, but not laugh out loud funny. Have come to the conclusion that humor is a subjective thing. I make jokes all the time in my lj and they appear to go over people's heads and I find things on tv to be hilarious, while others don't and vice versa. I think when laughter becomes a shared experience its magical and does not happen as often as I'd like. In Almovadar's case - my difficulty may be with the translation or reading the subtitles. Humor doesn't always translate well.
Cruz is quite good in Volver, but so are the other actors, no one quite leaps out at you. They are equally good and it is an ensemble film. The story focuses on Cruz's character though - her relationship with her daughter and her mother, and how the two relationships, we learn later, intersect and echo each other. At one point, Cruz's mother tells her granddaughter - that she'd lost Cruz years ago, her daughter had become distant and appeared to stop loving her. She told her grandaughter - make sure your mother feels your love, she needs it, and you. It's a horrible thing for a mother not to feel her daughter's love.
Watching this reminds me of my own relationships with my mother and grandmothers, one that I did not love enough, and one that I almost love too much. And of course my mother - who has always made me feel safe no matter where I am or what I have done. Volver - got across that same feeling, of safety. We so often associate it with fathers, but often mother's can make us feel safe as well, particularly at our most vulnerable.
Cruz's character in Volver arrives home from work, to find her daughter waiting at the bus stop for her, soaking wet in the rain. She asks why she's there. The daughter, Paula, states, I've been waiting for you to get home. Then shows her why. Cruz takes control of the horrific situation she finds, protects her daughter, and manages to fix it somehow. Later, towards the end of the film - after her own mother apologizes for not being able to do the same for her, Cruz forgives her mother and tells her she'd missed her and needs her.
I thought watching this, about my own mother, who can keep me talking on the phone for two hours at a stretch. But, who also will listen to my babble. As children, my brother and I, when my Dad was out of town, would often join my mother in her bed - terrified from a horror flick or whatever imagined monsters we'd seen in our separate rooms. My mother always made us feel safe. I remember doing it after Jaws and Poltergeist.
The story in Volver, though, is not just about mothers and daughters, it's about women and how we support and help one another. Cruz's neighbors help her with the restaurant. Her sister and mother work together to cut and shampoo women's hair. There's a kindness in the film that one does not see very often. A warmth that follows you long after. It is what I'd call a happy film. Comforting even.
It came out a few years ago so is no longer in theaters, but you can rent it via netflix or blockbuster.