In 1975, the year Franco died and his dictatorship ended, Pedro Almodóvar was a young man in Madrid, directing silent, sexually frank short films to be projected at underground parties. Nothing Almodóvar made in the era of Franco or the nervous years immediately after survives in screenable form. They live on now by reputation — early work from a titan of cinema. Other memories from dark times are more vulnerable to being forgotten.
Such is the simmer under Parallel Mothers, the director’s 22nd feature. For the first time in his career, the Spanish civil war and the dictatorship are explicitly discussed. Something outraged pulses through the movie, not a mood we associate with Almodóvar. In other ways, the film is deeply on brand: a colour-popping swirl of vitality, carnality and Penélope Cruz.
The actress stars as Janis, a high-end photographer. To begin, the director hands her the lens. Her subject is Arturo (Israel Elejalde), a forensic archaeologist. She mentions her great-grandfather, killed by Francoists and left in an unmarked mass grave. But in the midst of death, we are in life — and a movie by Almodóvar. Janis and Arturo duly end up in bed. At her open window, a white curtain swells. Call it a pregnant pause. In the next scene, she prepares to go into labour.
This was also where Almodóvar put Cruz the first time he cast her, in 1997’s Live Flesh. Then, her character was a panicked waif, giving birth on a Madrid bus. Now the venue is a smart maternity ward, and the waif is Ana (Milena Smit), a pale, scared teenager from a well-to-do family. Janis is kind to her. Neither woman has a partner. (Arturo turns out to be married.) That Janis — grounded, resourceful — will make a good parent seems obvious. For Ana, the future looks dicier. Welcome to the film promised by the title, a simple, split-screen melodrama. Well, yes and no.
The movie brims with Almodóvar-ish pleasures. Cruz is at once light-footed and pinpoint. Surrounding her is a World of Interiors set design, dusted with the consumer luxuries the director enjoys, at once half-satirical and wholly unapologetic. (A fashion magazine Janis shoots for brings flashes of Lancôme and Yves Saint Laurent; the film also finds beauty in a bowl of green apples.) Trademark too is the knowing hint of soap: issues of paternity, Ana and Janis reunited, a reversal of fortune. A pinch of thriller is added to the ambience. But the central twist is older than Hitchcock. Old and new coexist throughout, in fact. Happy single motherhood and sexual fluidity can seem very modern until you remember that Almodóvar has dealt with such ideas since he picked up a camera. The world just caught up with him.
That things change is the essence of the film. The story opens in 2016, then takes regular, hopscotch skips ahead — a year here, two there. It keeps you on your toes. It may also remind you of the strange rhythm of seeing children grow up: glance away from a newborn, turn back and find yourself at an 18th birthday party. But if time marches on, it also freezes. For all the intrigue, Janis has not forgotten her great-grandfather. Neither has Almodóvar. The unmarked grave re-enters the story, a chance at last to honour the dead. (The script draws on Spain’s long, uneasy wrestle with legally addressing the horrors of Franco.)
What binds the parallel tales of Parallel Mothers — Ana and Janis on one side, the dictatorship the other? More than it might seem. For one, the fact that history is fragile. For another, that new generations can be full of surprises. And also that missteps are missteps, and crimes are crimes. Save the judgments for them. Almodóvar is not typically one for messages, but these hard-won truths gleam from his quietly knockout new movie.
★★★★☆
In UK cinemas from January 28
Parallel Mothers — Almodóvar’s knockout new film swirls with vitality
Pinoy Variant