PARALLEL MOTHERS

Spain, 2021, 123 minutes, Colour.

Penelope Cruz, Milena Smit, Aitana Sanchez- Gijon, Rossy de Palma, Israel Elejalde.

Directed by Pedro Almodovar.

It is now 40 years since Pedro Almodovar (recognisable always as simply Almodovar) has been making films commenting on Spanish society, harking back to the Franco decades, commenting on trends in Spain, some satire, some parody, some melodrama, and many very serious dramas.

He has been preparing this film for some time. While it is a film very much about the present, the story of the parallel mothers of the title, it also does some harking back, very seriously, to the Franco years and some atrocities.

In fact, that is how the film starts, a focus on Janis (named by her hippy mother after Janis Joplin), a commercial photographer, busy with covers for popular women’s magazines. She is played by Penelope Cruz, who has been working with Almodovar since the 1990s. She won the Best Actress award at Venice 2021 for this performance.

But she is also interested in making contact with an archaeologist that she is photographing, trying to persuade him to do excavation work on a mass grave in the village where she came from, many dead, including her grandfather. The people of the village are united in wanting to know more of the truth about the deaths, to recover the bodies, to mourn and to bury. The archaeologist becomes more involved, starting a relationship with Janis.

And, suddenly for the audience, Janis is nine months pregnant, hospital, sharing a room with a pregnant teenager, also about to give birth, Ana (well played by Milena Smit). There are two strenuous birth sequences, then delight in the babies, and their being taken away for observation. And there are visits from Ana’s actress mother, an effective Aitana Sanchez-Gijon (who soon gives an opportunity to show her acting talent with moving auditions for a role in a play by Lorca).

Concern about the mass grave seems to go into abeyance.

The emphasis is on the two mothers, their exhilarating love for their daughter’s, all kinds of domestic detail, for Janis with an unsatisfactory au pair,  Ana in some depression, her mother going on theatrical tour, rejected by her father. So the parallel mothers have a lot in common, but are very different in age, temperament, situations. However, a surprise occasion brings them together again, closer than each of them might have imagined, highly dramatic and emotional issues about their babies, and an intensity of personal relationship.

The drama is intense for Janis, Penelope Cruz at her best. Huge emotional demands.

Ultimately, the film returns to the excavations, grim reminders, visually grim reminders of the antagonisms of the Spanish Civil War, the taking of sides, viciousness of reprisals and the consequences.

This is Almodovar serious, a Spanish director with his finger on the pulse of contemporary Spanish life but also conscience-raising about the Civil War enmities and past.

1. The films of Almodovar? Over 40 years? His perspective on Spanish society over the decades? Remaining contemporary over the decades? Yet his interest in Spanish history and culture, especially the years of Franco?
2. The Madrid settings, apartments, photo studios, cafes, streets and buildings? Atmosphere of the city? The contrast with the village and the country, the countryside, homes, streets, poorer? And the field with the mass cemetery? The excavation, and assembling the bones and skeletons of those who have died? The musical score?
3. The title, the introduction to Janis, age, unmarried, skilled at her work as a photographer, seeing her in action? The suddenness of her pregnancy? In hospital? The introduction to Ana, teenage, apprehensive, rejection by her father, domination by her actress mother?
4. The introduction of the theme about the mass grave, memories of the fascist era, of Franco, of violence on both sides, massacres? The village, the memories, Janis and her grandfather, the townspeople wanting to know the truth, offering finance and help for an excavation? Janis, photographing the archaeologist, putting the issue to him, his promise to present the case to the board? And the sexual relationship between the two, a married man, his wife with cancer? Janis and her pregnancy?
5. The hospital, the two women, bonding, sharing? The two scenes of difficult births? The mothers and joy with their daughters? The babies taken for observation? Ana’s mother, actress, separated from her husband, not seeing her daughter growing up, her father sending the daughter to her? Her acting career, aspirations, the scenes of audition, her talent, the play by Lorca? Being offered tours, the conversation with Ana as to whether she should tour or stay with her? Her going on tour?
6. The long focus of the film on Janis and her daughter, at home, the maid and her help but her sick husband in hospital, Deborah the au pair girl, careless, not taking correction, finally sacked? The effect on Janis of having the child? Love? But starting to go back to work, getting help from her friend and commissions, photos of flowers and shoes, going back then to portraits? Success?
7. Arturo, not having contact with Janis, her bringing the baby, his declaration that it did not resemble him? Janis upset, disturbed, her decision to have the test, the discovery that the baby was not hers? Later her using the same method for Ana and her baby?
8. Changing her phone number, angry with Arturo, the chance meeting with Ana, her going to her house, work at the cafe, the bond between the two? Sharing stories? Janis’ situation at home, inviting Ana in with the baby, at home, there sharing, conversation, motherhood, cooking? The death of Ana’s baby, cot death, her accepting this? Becoming an alternate mother to the other daughter? The attraction between the two, the sexual affair? The effect on each?
9. Janis and the news about Ana’s motherhood? Making the decision to tell her? The effect, Ana’s acceptance, taking the baby? Janis letting her go? Ana staying with her mother? Traumatic feelings for Janis?
10. The meeting with Arturo, Ana and her paranoia? The truth about the excavation of the mass grave?
11. Janis, going to the village, meeting all the women, their stories, explanations, information, memories of the day? Janis’s grandfather, spending a day digging his grave, returning, the people shot and buried?
12. The excavation, the accuracy, discovering the bones, sifting for objects like rings? Identifying the bodies? Laying them out, tagged? Janis and the people from the village coming out, watching, grieving? Ana coming with the baby, the bonding with Janis?
13. Almodovar and his skill in observing contemporary stories and characters? And issues of conscience, not losing the memory of the Franco years, the bitterness, bloodshed?