All About My Mother

Friday, December 28, 2007

Here we are continuing to go backwards through the films of Pedro Almodovar. And actually, this may be a good place to stop for the time being. I get the sense, from what I've read, that his earlier films are more for fans only. I'm not sure I like him enough to peep his entire filmography.

I really liked, and maybe even kinda loved, The Bad Education and Talk to Her. This one, like Volver, I enjoyed but was kind of lukewarm on. It has the same colorful visual style of his other films, and the same odd, melodramatic story and plot twists. But at the end of Talk to Her, I found myself surprisingly moved, and at the end of All About My Mother I just didn't feel much.

I suspect maybe it has to do with the fact that this one and Volver are Almodovar's tribute to women. (And people who want to be women). Maybe I just empathize more with the male leads in the other movies. Maybe these are working on some frequency that gets interference from my dick.

Oh, one note. I did appreciate the "Two Years Later" ending, which was so abrupt, and almost needless, that I think it may have been an intentional parody of movies that tack on an epilogue just to have a happy ending. Kudos.