parallel mothers (w&d almodóvar)

About a year ago, in one of the occasional semi-official quarantines which have peppered our lives to a lesser extent in Montevideo than in other parts of the world, we went on a mini Almodóvar spree, watching four of five of his back catalogue in a row. Some were strong, but others felt as though they were Almodóvar by numbers. Take a man or a woman on the edge of a crisis, introduce a charismatic co-star, see what happens. The very early work is perhaps as notable for the zest and energy that was present in the representation of a Spain emerging from the shadow of dictatorship as for the narratives themselves. Almodóvar was a coordinator of colour and high jinks who loved to be an agent provocateur.

I note all this, which is not to say that there have not been many a classic in the midst of his earlier and middle years, but because what is apparent is that this is a director who is just getting stronger with age. His stories become more humane and are touched by more subtlety as he has gone on. Parallel Mothers is the apotheosis of this. A film which looks at the issues of motherhood, relationships and history, blending them all together in a mezcla which probably shouldn’t work, but actually triumphs.

From a narrative point of view, one of the most interesting elements is what happens in the last twenty minutes. There are moments when Parallel Mothers is pure melodrama, as Cruz works out which partner she’s going to end up with. Just when you think that this decision will be the key dramatic resolution of the film, Almodóvar sidesteps it completely. The key dramatic resolution of this film is of the past with the present. The connection that needs to be resolved between the generations. There is something both subtle, crude and profound about the way in which Janis, Cruz’s character, can have an adulterous affair, then get involved with the real mother of her own child, then go back to the lover, and all this is, in the end, fine. Because there are greater wounds to be healed, and greater tragedies that need coming to terms with. In this, Almodóvar seems akin to the novelists Cercas or Marias, and one understands how profoundly the Spanish Civil War, the children of whose victims are still alive, still exerts its influence over the Spanish psyche.

All of this in a drama which is at once frothy and tragic, which has that Almodóvar flair, but also succeeds in talking about cot death and sexual abuse without ever turning the film into something didactic or heavy handed. His actresses and actors excel, but this cannot help but be because they are representing characters with an indisputable humanity. I read somewhere the other day that the film is on the verge of grossing a million pounds in the UK alone. Almodóvar’s art gets both more complex and more affecting, and the curious thing is that, even in the Anglo Saxon world, this makes for commercial success as well. The film is also testament to the virtues of a less commercial aspect of art, that of permitting the artist to evolve over decades, permitting us to watch how they refine their palette and expand their horizons.