Volver

Pedro Almodovar is a genius. Granted, I have only seen three of his films: All About My Mother, Bad Education, and now, Volver (three-and-a-half if you count Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, which I did not finish). There is a beauty and a wonder to his cinema that is generally absent nowadays. Additionally, his camera worships women in a way that has not been seen since the golden age, back in the black and white days.
What to say about Volver...? The film strikes me in a series of images, typically hyper-colored, beautifully framed, sometimes startling. Consumptive red blood soaking into a paper towel. Penelope Cruz, somehow making outfits of many different garish colors work. A half-blind aunt whose eyes are hugely, comically magnified behind her glasses. Hills dotted with the wind mills of a power plant. A mother hiding under a bed.
What is the film about? Forgiveness, perhaps--but that peculiar forgiveness shared by a mother and a daughter, or a daughter and a sister. Men do not matter, in this particular world Almodovar has created. Their actions have consequences, yes, but the women in this world have the ability to transcend these actions--regardless of their horrific nature. The strength passed from mother to daughter, from sister to sister, from daughter to mother...this is what matters.
I am not what one calls Wicca-Feminist-Earth Mother, but I have a peculiar belief in the power of the mother-daughter, sister-sister bond (just as I am certain men hold their father-son bond at a sacred level). My mother is my best friend. I am fortunate to be close with my sister. Women viewing women, as opposed to men viewing women, and this is what matters. The realization of that connection, between blood, between friends, between women.
What I'm saying is that Pedro Almodovar is a genius who loves women unlike any filmmaker today. And his love of women is so pure that he forces the viewer to reconsider their position toward women--especially is that viewer is a woman herself. I anxiously await my next journey into his hyper-colored, hyper-beautiful world where women are sacred, and men are accessories.