Penelope Cruz and Milena Smit
(Picture: Handout)Some older directors merrily churn out bland films. It’s as if they have too much time on their hands and just want to keep busy. But that’s enough about Woody Allen.
72-year-old Pedro Almodóvar wields the camera like a man possessed. His latest could be described as a race against time, a desperate treasure hunt for fragile booty (the remains of “leftists”, massacred during the Spanish Civil War). Tick tick tick. Dry bones, here, fuel an extraordinary amount of drama. To put it another way, I left the screening drenched in tears.
Snazzy Madrid-based photographer Janis (Penelope Cruz) snaps forensic archaeologist Arturo (Israel Elejalde) for a magazine article. The pair gaze at each other’s mouths and eyes as they discuss Janis’ desire to be re-united with her great-grandfather’s skeleton. They’re talking about death. They’re thinking about sex.
Exhilarating edits whoosh us into the next chapter. Janis, about to be a single mum, gives birth in hospital, where she befriends wealthy, troubled teen Ana (Milena Smit), also having a girl. The two babies, Cecilia and Anita, have health issues and spend a night in isolation.
Some time later, an unsettling fact comes to light, a fact Janis does everything she can to bury. And, when she and Ana next speak, Janis receives news that makes her (continued) suppression of the truth truly reprehensible. Janis is faced with a huge, if complex, dilemma. Her family history and natural inclinations make her a champion of the underdog. But is she now acting in a way that would make Franco proud?
As so often with Almodóvar, soapy plot threads are entangled with witty and astute observations about modern Spain. True, belly laughs are few and far between. And not everything works. Janis’ first bout of irrational behaviour simply doesn’t fit with what we know about her character (seeing as her nature is, if anything, greedily impulsive, rather than stingy, it makes no sense that she would shut herself off from Anita and the clearly vulnerable, emotionally under-supported, Ana).
But what follows is all too involving. In fact, as Janis and Ana get closer, the zeitgeisty words they croon at each other explode like bombs in our brain. To swab or not to swab? Practically every other conversation concerns DNA testing and the need to acknowledge horrific sexual/ political abuse (even if the process is exhausting and exposes us to humiliation). For Almodóvar, saliva is where science and social activism meet.
Though the whole cast are fantastic, Cruz’ performance underpins everything. The actress (in her seventh collaboration with the director) makes it abundantly clear why the dynamic Janis is an object of fascination for those around her. Which, in turn, tells us so much about her and Almodóvar’s brand of feminism. Note the meta sub-plot, involving Ana’s bitter, 47-year-old actress mother, Teresa (Aitana Sanchez-Gijon). The latter is seen on stage, playing a “faded, frustrated” spinster about whom cruel kids say, “No one would want to touch her now”. 47-year-old Cruz – cast as a woman swamped with sexual admirers – effortlessly offers an alternative reality.
The camera swirls around, putting fire in the belly of prosaic objects (a computer mouse; a coffee-cup). At one point, we’re bombarded with a shot of a tapas bar’s ceiling and it’s as if the director himself is tipsy. Even black and white photos (of Janis’ grandmother, great-grandfather and a host of men from Janis’ village) seemed designed to intoxicate.
As a colourful meditation on crime (and seriously, Cruz wears a red cardigan that I would kill to own), Parallel Mothers has the power to convert those who view themselves as apolitical. Both naughty and knotty, it ranks alongside Almodóvar’s best work (Live Flesh; All About My Mother; Volver). Here are two words for Pedro: Rage on!
