Volver Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities Volver Pedro Almodovar
Pedro Almodovar is fearless that we know for sure. There is not a topic he won't address without sentimentality and without gratuitous harshness. Surely all of us are tired of movies presenting us "raw" looks at life's harshest realities. Suffering is most poignant when stylized in art no one can ever really capture the hardness that life hands many and we can only point at it through metaphor.
Volver takes sad realities between men and women, fathers and daughters particularly, and presents them in artful ugliness. The movie pivots around a group of women's relationships to each other, without this being a "chick flick" in the stereotypical sense.
Also, Almodovar plays with the now clichés of Magical Realism. Lo real maravilloso, as they say in Spanish, does not really consider the dead as passive players in the lives of the living. He deftly addresses this construction in a way that both honors the past and gently tweaks its nose. I really enjoyed this aspect of the movie, and took the bait- hook, line and sinker.
As a father, Volver was poignant to a painful degree. As a man, I would have preferred to have seen it in drag (it pointed at the worst in men with hardly any male characters- bravo Pedro). As a critic, there were technical flaws in the sound that were annoying (he can't lack for resources at this point in his career - get a better sound team Pedro). As a viewer, I enjoyed the interplay between the characters and thought the dialogue was very clever at times. This one can go either way big screen or small screen. But amigo, just screen it.
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Pedro Almodovar is fearless that we know for sure. There is not a topic he won't address without sentimentality and without gratuitous harshness. Surely all of us are tired of movies presenting us "raw" looks at life's harshest realities. Suffering is most poignant when stylized in art no one can ever really capture the hardness that life hands many and we can only point at it through metaphor.
Volver takes sad realities between men and women, fathers and daughters particularly, and presents them in artful ugliness. The movie pivots around a group of women's relationships to each other, without this being a "chick flick" in the stereotypical sense.
Also, Almodovar plays with the now clichés of Magical Realism. Lo real maravilloso, as they say in Spanish, does not really consider the dead as passive players in the lives of the living. He deftly addresses this construction in a way that both honors the past and gently tweaks its nose. I really enjoyed this aspect of the movie, and took the bait- hook, line and sinker.
As a father, Volver was poignant to a painful degree. As a man, I would have preferred to have seen it in drag (it pointed at the worst in men with hardly any male characters- bravo Pedro). As a critic, there were technical flaws in the sound that were annoying (he can't lack for resources at this point in his career - get a better sound team Pedro). As a viewer, I enjoyed the interplay between the characters and thought the dialogue was very clever at times. This one can go either way big screen or small screen. But amigo, just screen it.
MySpace.com/200WordCritic