Two pregnant women “by accident”, one teenager and the other more mature, share a room in the hospital. The few words they exchange during these hours will create a very close bond between them, which chance will take care of complicating in a way that will change both of their lives.
Posted at 12:30 p.m.
What could Pedro Almodóvar do after a film sum like pain and glory and this beautiful parenthesis that constitutes the short film The human voice ? The Spanish master turned to women, one of his greatest sources of inspiration, while adding a political dimension to his cinema, also evoking, through a very contemporary story, one of the periods dark spots in Spain’s recent history.
True to his style, the director of all about my mother borrows the contours of a sumptuous melodrama to tell one of those stories with drawers of which he has the secret. From a very simple starting point – two women about to give birth hit it off in the hospital and quickly form a friendship – Almodóvar draws the viewer into a story with many dramatic twists. He also gives an indication of the tenor of his remarks from the first sequence, while Janis (Penélope Cruz), whom her mother baptized thus in homage to Janis Joplin, tells why she wishes to proceed with the excavation of the tomb of her great-grandfather, buried anonymously by fascists during the Spanish Civil War.
Spread over three years, the story thus echoes the quest of a forty-something woman who, like the other women in her family who preceded her, raises her child alone. Her quest is juxtaposed with that of two other women, Ana (Milena Smit, a revelation), the teenager met at the hospital, and the mother of the latter (Aitana Sánchez-Gijón), an actress having trouble reconciling the exercise of his art with family life.
Sober and serious, often moving, madres paralelas (Parallel mothers) is not immediately one of the most spectacular films by the cantor of the Movida, but it proceeds from a profound exploration of all aspects of human nature. Penélope Cruz also finds there one of her greatest roles.
In theaters in the original Spanish version with French subtitles and in a French dubbed version
Drama
Madres Paralelas (VF: Parallel mothers)
Pedro Almodovar
With Penélope Cruz, Milena Smit, Rossy De Palma
2 hours