Every story has an origin.
And that of human beings always begins with childbirth.
A miracle that repeats the same, for hundreds of thousands of years.
Every time a woman gives birth, she moves the world.
And to motherhood, basically, we owe everything.
Pedro Almodóvar knows it.
And he has tried to pay off that debt with a good part of his filmography.
In his 40-year career, there are hardly any films by the filmmaker where a parent is not portrayed.
But, this time, the tribute is double, like its protagonists.
Parallel Mothers, his new and highly anticipated film
, opened today Wednesday the 78th edition of the Venice Film Festival, in official competition.
He received applause, in the first screenings of the day, although somewhat contained.
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Austera, after all, is also the film, which will be released commercially on October 8. There is hardly any humor, or the surreal moments of other films by the creator. The tone is as serious as that of the recent
Juliet
and
Pain and Glory
, and like the issues discussed: it speaks of mothers and daughters, of ancestors and descendants, of historical and family memory. Janis (Penelope Cruz) searches for her grandfather, buried in a mass grave at the beginning of the Civil War. And, meanwhile, a casual intercourse with an anthropologist is granted. Sometimes the cinema knows how to tell everything with an ellipsis. First frame: two naked and intertwined bodies. Next: hospital, maternity service.
There, waiting for her daughter, Janis forges another bond: Ana (Milena Smit), her roommate.
They meet a 40-year-old woman, a veteran of difficulties, prepared for an unexpected gift, and a frightened young woman, who instead of a dream faces a trauma.
Both single, and alone.
Until a series of vicissitudes unite them forever.
Pedro Almodóvar talks about his film.
“Now I am more interested in imperfect mothers, those who go through difficult periods to resolve.
The previous mothers in my films were different, they came from the education I received ”, added the filmmaker.
Specifically, of his mother, Francisca Caballero, and of the women who surrounded little Pedro when she had to leave him in a courtyard to take care of the house or the field.
The child was amazed, before that feminine universe always in motion. They washed clothes, hung them, fixed objects and problems, sang and, above all, told: stories, events, betrayals, gossip; anything that happened in rural La Mancha and Extremadura where the filmmaker grew up. The director says that his taste for the mixture of fiction and reality was born there. But, at 71, he has met many more women. “The more the Penelope character got complicated, the more interested me. It was a first for me. But according to my experience with real mothers, there are very different types, and some do not have maternal instincts either, ”said Almodóvar.
With his film, he tries to embrace them all. And understand them. Terrified, enthusiastic, absent, devoted, frustrated or happy mothers. Simply human. With their fears, their hopes and their always heavy shoulders. Women who sometimes bend, almost break. But they always resist.
Along with its protagonists, the film also goes through difficult moments, at least at its start.
Any delivery, after all, takes time, effort, fear and uncertainty.
Waiting, yes, of an unrepeatable joy.
Thus, between some imposed dialogue and the successive turns of the script, the feature film seems to be heading towards the soap opera.
Nothing could be further, however, from reality.
When the truths come out and the plot takes a break, the drama of two women remains.
And the mastery of Almodóvar to tell it.
With hardly any camera movements, with the umpteenth notable soundtrack by Alberto Iglesias,
Madres paralelas surrenders to contained emotion.
Never exaggerated and, at the same time, always on the verge of exploding.
On the screen, the truth parades, the best ingredient to tie the viewer to the armchair.
Milena Smit and Penélope Cruz, in 'Parallel Mothers'.
Credit also belongs to Cruz and Smit.
"He may be my toughest character yet," conceded the star.
“There are very few directors who give their actors and crew that much time.
Pedro works with the system that I respect and value the most, he is an artisan.
Few are left in the world.
And for me that is gold.
You see a man willing to give his life for the movie.
Try to get all the truth that we have.
It has been hard, but magical and precious ”, he explained.
So much so that
Variety
magazine
has already placed her among the favorites for the Oscar. It is not for less: perhaps Cruz has achieved the best interpretation of his outstanding career. Smit, on the other hand, has just begun to shine. But its light looks promising. The young woman, excited, said that this role was probably "the most beautiful gift" she had received in her life.
Deep down, describing the female psyche has always been one of Almodovar's hallmarks. Although
Parallel Mothers
contains an authentic manifesto of the creator's cinema. There is the freedom to be and love whoever we want; the ode to women; the kitchens, the center of the action, while the most Spanish of tortillas is being prepared; bright colors; or the political commitment and the firm vindication of their ideas. Even at the cost of putting too much meat on the grill and losing subtlety, as in his last film. "It's about time you found out what country you live in," Janis snaps at Ana.
"I believe that Spanish society has a huge moral debt with the families of the disappeared," said the director in Venice, as blunt in his statements as in the feature film, which launches a plea in favor of the search and exhumation of so many thousands of corpses buried "in ditches and ditches."
Some 114,000, according to an old count by judge Baltasar Garzón, although there are estimates that even exceed 150,000.
One of the countries in the world with the most murdered people scattered where no one can watch over them.
"After 85 years, until this debt to the disappeared is paid, we cannot close our recent history, and what happened in the Civil War," added the filmmaker.
From the left, Aitana Sanchéz Gijón, Milena Smit, Pedro Almodóvar, Penélope Cruz and Israel Elejalde in the morning presentation of 'Parallel Mothers'. CLAUDIO ONORATI / EFE
In his notes on the film, the director confesses that he reduced the relevance of historical memory, for fear that it would engulf the rest. But the matter did engulf half of the press conference at La Mostra, where the recent draft of the Democratic Memory Law approved by the Government was alluded to, among other issues. When talking about Lorca, remembered in the film through
Doña Rosita la soltera
Almodóvar added: “His figure shows that our society does not have a good relationship with his immediate history. And neither does the cinema. It has taken a lot of work to make films about ETA or another problem that has affected us as a whole ”. And, without quoting him directly, the creator alluded to Vox: “Spain is very tense, and its political class more than ever. That is a reflection of the fact that there is a party that says things that have never been said, that normally already falls into illegality, into the unconstitutional. We have never seen professionals in politics who behave with such vulgarity and in such a low way ”.
There is another evocation in the film, but nothing implied. Because former president Mariano Rajoy comes out with his name and surname, and with a few words that the director has not forgotten: “In a presentation of the budgets, he said, full of pride, that he had dedicated 'zero euros' to historical memory. One of the advantages of cinema is that it survives those of us who make it and those who see it and he will be eternally linked, at least in this film, to that harmful phrase ".
In addition to teaching the world the problem of Spain with his memory, Almodóvar asks
Parallel Mothers for
another satisfaction: the Golden Lion, one of the few awards missing from his curriculum.
It would be the culmination of the recent love affair between the filmmaker and the Venice festival.
In 2019, he received the honorary award;
Last year, he premiered his medium-length film
La voz humana here
.
And right in Venice, 38 years ago, he began his international journey.
It was 1983, and La Mostra was scandalized by the passion of the nuns of
Entre tinieblas
for heroin.
It was his fourth movie.
And he also talked about mothers.
Like now.
And as always.
Without them, there would be no story.
Women of the cinema against patriarchy
Half the world. That is to say, millions and millions of women, from all corners of the planet. Different origins, ethnicities, sexual orientations, religions, educations and even dreams. Despite such a variety, however, practically all share at least one common denominator: the hostility of a system conceived by and for men, and that sooner or later gets in their way. This is how they suffer it daily. And the cinema, at last, seems to begin to notice. So much so that La Mostra de Venecia hosts several films about fighters against the patriarchy, conceived in remote places from each other, but the result of injustices and similar concerns.
Beyond Pedro Almodóvar's Parallel Mothers, the official competition welcomes Audrey Diwan's 'The Event', based on the novel of the same name about a young woman who clashes with the ban on abortion in 1960s France. And Maggie Gyllenhaal's 'The Dark Daughter' tackles the same complex issue that Elena Ferrante's original book deals with: a woman who needs to take a break away from her daughters. Something commonly accepted for fathers, but unheard of for mothers. Her oppression is not so different from what Lady Di feels in Pablo Larraín's 'Spencer', who imagines the weekend when the princess decides to separate from Carlos de Gales.
There are gladiators in all sections of La Mostra: among other examples in the Horizons section, the first Kosovo film to be received at the competition, 'Vera Dreams of the Sea', by Kaltrina Krasniqi, focuses on a single woman facing a retrograde society. And 'À Pleins Temps', by Eric Gravel, tells of the difficult balance of a single mother looking for work. Alone with her son and his problems is also the protagonist of 'El otro Tom', by Rodrigo Plá and Laura Santullo.
“I think that one of the biggest social movements in recent years is the one linked to MeToo and the fight for equality. It is one of the dominant themes in today's sensibilities, and it is also reflected in the films that we have received. Furthermore, not only the creators face these problems, but also several male directors reflect on the prejudices and violence suffered by women ”, says Alberto Barbera, artistic director of the festival.