Reviewed by Lamar Kukuk
2/11/07
There's an interesting shift
happening at multiplexes all across the country: subtitles are making
a comeback. Theaters that would never have imagined booking a movie
you have to read are actually taking the leap and bringing the works of
foreign filmmakers whose names you used to only know from the Oscars and
by reading the columns of those Big City Critics to all new audiences.
It may not be an easy transition for everyone (a sign I recently saw in
a theater lobby mentioning which of the movies they were showing are “SUBTITLED!!!”
gave me visions of angry mobs emerging from Screen 13 furious at the outrage
of characters who “don't speak no English!”), but it's stronger than ever
this Oscar season. So it was that I got my first look at “un film
de ALMODOVAR”, the very descriptive possessory credit preferred by larger-than-life
Spanish auteur Pedro Almodovar. Volver is kinda slight and
padded out with irrelevant subplots, but it's also fun and genuinely original.
Raimunda (Penelope Cruz),
sister Sole (Lola Duenas) and daughter Paula (Yohana Cobo) pay a troubling
visit to her aunt Paula (Chus Lampreave) who's still self-sufficient despite
being more or less totally senile. Sadly, her aunt passes away shortly
thereafter, but Raimunda can't attend the funeral: she's too busy
covering up the fact that her husband (Antonio de la Torre) has just been
killed (in self-defense) by her daughter. So Sole goes alone, and
learns from family friend Agustina (Blanca Portillo) that locals had seen
the ghost of their late mother Irene (Carmen Maura) around Paula's house
helping her through the day. When she drives home, Sole finds a shocking
stowaway in her trunk: Irene, who “came back” for reasons she's reluctant
to get into. Perhaps it has something to do with what happened the
night she and her husband died, and Agustina's mother vanished.
“Volver” literally means
“To Return”, but I prefer the translation the subtitles give when Raimunda
sings the word: “Coming Back”. That phrase has different meanings
for the characters at different times in the story, and the thread about
Irene's ghost and the secrets she's keeping is intriguing and clever.
The final twist that explains everything has been hiding in plain sight
all along, but it's something I've never seen in a movie before and I was
pleasantly shocked. An 80-minute Volver focused entirely on
that plot would be brilliant.
Alas, a couple of strange
subplots won't step aside. In one, Raimunda takes over a closed local
restaurant to feed a film crew working nearby. The other concerns
Agustina's famous sister, a former child singer who now hosts a Jerry
Spinger-style talk show and is eager to sift through the family mystery
on the air. Neither amounts to much of anything: Raimunda does
a lot of cooking, sings a song, and flirts with a member of the crew, but
has she taken over the restaurant permanently? Is there any future
for her in cooking, singing or dating? Why would anyone sing a song
about being trapped by the consequences of the decisions you've made while
trying out for a kid's talent show? Which brings us to the “Trash
TV” show Agustina appears on. The characters can't tell us enough
how much they hate and don't watch TV (Almodovar swinging that decades-old
ax filmmakers have against their rival medium), but in the end the show
we see utterly fails to satirize a spectacularly easy target and its' involvement
does nothing to advance the plot.
The performances are quite
good, as they need to be to make verbal comedy work in another language,
although Cruz's Best Actress Oscar nomination might be a bit of a stretch.
I liked Duenas best: Sole's perpetual confusion and desperation to
keep the secret of her mother's “return” are delightful. Maura plays
all the different angles on Irene and her secrets perfectly, shifting gears
from comic to tragic to poignant on a dime. Cruz and Cobo (kinda
the Spanish Michelle Trachtenberg) make a good mother-daughter duo, and
I really felt years of unspoken misery at the hands of her loutish husband
between them.
Volver moves briskly
and despite a bit of flabbiness here and there kept me involved and satisfied
with its' many mysteries. I'm glad I had a chance to see it, even
if I did have to read... |
