In the new film by Pedro Almodóvar, in a simultaneous journey, two women are hospitalized, give birth and then see their respective babies being placed under observation at the same time. The title Parallel mothers finds there one of its meanings — there will be others. In view of this combination of circumstances, we suspect that each will end up with the baby of the other without his knowledge. However, past this early development, the film connects unexpected reversals. This is a very fine vintage, very dense, which we enjoyed discussing with the filmmaker.
This 22and feature film marks, in many ways, the culmination of Pedro Almodóvar’s love for the mother figure, present in all his films, either supporting or starring, as here. “I find that the relationship between a mother and her child, between a mother and her daughter, in particular, is very rich and lends itself to an infinity of stories. Maternity as such is not an experience that I or men in general can claim to understand, but I find it to be a miracle, confides the filmmaker joined by videoconference. It’s a mystery to exist as humans, and I think maybe I’m exploring this bond between mother and child in an attempt to unravel that mystery. »
Parallel mothers fits in with the unforeseen trajectory of Janis (Penélope Cruz), a photographer who, between two contracts, tries to bring to light, in the village of her late grandmother, a mass grave where the Phalangists once buried several citizens, including his grandfather. Fallen pregnant by chance, and delighted to be, Janis befriends a young girl in the hospital, Ana (Milena Smit), pregnant like her and neglected by her mother Teresa (Aitana Sánchez-Gijón), a actress who is about to break through late in life. In short, maternal figures are legion, past, present, future…
Ode to actresses
It was mentioned, Parallel mothers is based on a plot that is not so much winding as it is unpredictable. There are moments, for example, when the film seems to want to turn into suspense: a close-up on a knife, the music of Alberto Iglesias which is colored with disturbing notes… Here we remember In the flesh (1997), The skin that I live (2011), or even Volover (2006)… And then no, not at all.
When you think that such a thing will happen, the film goes elsewhere, but an elsewhere always in phase with the psychology – complex, full of contradictions, as in real life, in short – of the characters. For Pedro Almodóvar, designing such a scenario was no small feat.
“I spent several years writing this story. I researched mass graves, and all the while the character of Janis, raised by her grandmother, continued to take shape… Initially, Ana’s family, her mother Teresa, was very different, almost far-right, but it didn’t work. I left everything to rest, came back to it… The story has evolved a lot. Ultimately, Janis represents Republican Spain and Ana, a very young girl, is initially apolitical. »
As for Teresa, she gained in importance and became a narcissistic actress, but not unsympathetic for all that. With Teresa, Almodóvar not only renews his love for the figure of the mother, but also for that of the actress. As in all about my motherthis character occurs on stage during the plot.
“I’m fascinated by actresses who play theater actresses in film, like Bette Davis in All About Eve [de Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950]. I think it’s because as a child I was surrounded by women and often saw my mother…not lying to my father, but rearranging reality in a way to protect me. There was this dimension of “representation” in everyday life. »
It took me several years to write this story. I researched mass graves, and all the while the character of Janis, raised by her grandmother, continued to take shape…
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Parallel mothers also has a strong political subtext, the kind that we did not often encounter in the author. The story of the horrors committed by the Falangists, allies of Franco’s fascist troops, is thus told by women who have lost a husband, a father…
“It’s a subject that Spanish cinema has not touched on until now. I wanted to talk about it for a long time, but I couldn’t find the right scenario. And suddenly, thanks to the character of Janis, I could weave this link with the past, on the one hand, through her grandmother, and on the other hand, by the fact that she herself has a secret, that she is hiding something — like Spanish society in relation to the crimes of the Falangists. It was my way of bringing the past into the present. It’s oblique, because the film first deals with a trinity of mothers, but it’s an approach that I liked. »
To continue the scenario writer, the Spanish company has a debt towards the families of the victims, and this debt according to him still has not been paid. “Until all these pits have been unearthed, the war will not be completely over. »
In the foreground of this backdrop, the woman dominates, as is usually the case with Almodóvar. Guardian of history, self-determined, courageous, carnal: she is multifaceted (and not necessarily a mother, as evidenced by the character of Rossy De Palma, muse from the start).
Perfect Penelope
In a way, Parallel mothers is also a love letter to Penélope Cruz, who is on her seventh collaboration with the filmmaker, and who played the latter’s mother in the autobiographical pain and glory (2019). Moreover, we feel a cinephile tremolo when we see Penélope Cruz pregnant in Parallel mothersshe who was discovered giving birth in a bus in In the fleshprecisely, almost 25 years ago now.
” It’s true… In the flesh is the other film in which I was explicitly political. I had camped this childbirth in the context of the night when the Ministry of the Interior declared a state of exception which came to suspend the individual freedoms of citizens, in 1970. I had already known for some time what an immense actress is Penélope — I knew it from Ham, ham, by Bigas Luna, in 1992. For me, she is the perfect incarnation of the mother, I don’t know why. You know, historically, the mother has always been asexual in Spanish cinema, which has traditionally portrayed her as undesirable, as opposed to Italian cinema — I’m thinking in particular of Sophia Loren. Penélope breaks this traditional image. »
Pedro Almodóvar goes further: according to him, Penélope Cruz is the perfect actress: “As much in drama as in comedy, her acting has a visceral side; it is true. It is atypical, original. She has her own way of speaking, of moving… The camera adores her, too. »
And so are we.
The film Parallel mothers hits theaters February 11.