Almodóvar: Take 3

Merry Christmas, indeed.

After months of waiting, we finally went to see Pedro Almodóvar's new film, "Volver" (To Return), yesterday. It was a little gift in itself.


Our friend Quentin joined us, and we all came away pleased. Well worth the wait, I'd say.

On Christmas Eve, Amy and I went to see "The Good Shepherd," and later that night after a delicious dinner at Andina (where we dreamed about our next big trip: Peru) we watched "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" at home. After those two, she said I owed her at least one chick flick.

I wouldn't call "Volver" a chick flick, but more on that later...

First, although "Shepherd' and "Cuckoo's" are great, both limit women to very constricted roles. The women in "Shepherd" are generally eye candy, and bad things happen to them or those around them when they are anything more than that. In "Cuckoo's," the terrific Nurse Ratched is the ultimate symbol of The Man, which is the very thing McMurphy is fighting against, which makes her the biggest bitch in the world.

In Almodóvar's "Volver," by contrast, women rule the day. And the night. And everything in between, from births (there's a helluva twist there I cannot give away) to deaths (as the movie opens, women are meticulously tending graves). And they don't have to be either the epitome of evil or the objects of desire. Here, it's the men who are reduced to bit players, often being - in the words of Penélope Cruz's Raimunda - a "pest."

It's great on so many levels: For defying stereotypes. For the complexity - the word Quentin used afterward - that's inherent in not only this movie, but also seemingly all Almodóvar's works. And just for the sheer beauty of what he sees and how he communicates it. From the colors to the composition to the themes to the dialogue.

In the end, Raimunda is strong and funny and beautiful. But she's also fragile and serious and a mess. In other words, she's real.

It says something about our culture that too few American directors offer up such portrayals with any regularity. It says all the more that, in this case, the person doing so is a Spanish director who happens to be gay. But because it's a foreign film, most of this country will never see it.

But it's no chick flick. It's just one great movie.

p.s.: For anyone who's sick of my ramblings about Almodóvar, take heart. This should be my last post on the subject for a while. His next movie, tentatively called "El Piel Que Habito" (The Skin I Live In) probably won't be done for at least a year.