Madres paralelas

Director: Pedro Almodòvar

Starrings: Penélope Cruz, Milena Smit, Israel Elejalde, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, Julieta Serrano, Rossy de Palma

Country: Spain

Year 2021

Author review: Shane Virunphan

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Pedro Almodovar has always been courted by the Cannes Film Festival. Many of his films have been screened in Cannes. In 2021, however, his last film, Madres paralelas had its world premiere at the 78th Venice Film Festival.

Almodovar's career is long and precious. No need for further praise. He is the pillar of European cinema, but above all, he represents the top of Spanish cinema with his genre, full of numerous references.

In Madres paralelas, he returns to his most congenial and appreciated themes. Madres paralelas comes after the very successful and celebrated Dolor y Gloria: it is the celebration of his maximum egocentricity.

In Madres paralelas, he returns to observe women, mothers, in their femininity facets. Before, there was a cumbersome and heavy political premise. Unfortunately, it weighs down and delays the development of the multiple narrative themes.

An example is Janis' lively melodrama. Narratively, there are cradle exchanges, fleeting, ephemeral loves with an inevitable homosexual happening. Her life has a political interpretation full of the ghosts of the civil war and the return of the corpses to their families.

First impression confirms a determined direction with all the precise and immediate elements. It is the mark of his language: depth of gaze and fascinating interpretation of the characters. However, something is wrong. In fact, in the finale and on several other occasions of the second part, suffering from embarrassing vertigo, and indigestion of events.

When everything seems to be heading towards an obvious conclusion, something damages the economy of the story and the confusion definitely takes over the even if it is a congenial story.