Past is present in Almodovar’s masterful ‘Parallel Mothers’
Starting out with a set-up straight out of one of his beloved telenovelas, the masterful writer-director Pedro Almodovar begins his latest entry “Parallel Mothers” with two soon-to-be mothers in a maternity ward in Madrid.
Both have become pregnant by accident. One is the beautiful middle-aged photographer Janis (Almodovar’s muse Penelope Cruz), who has had a one-night stand with someone helping her to investigate the murder of her great-grandfather during the Spanish Civil War. The other, Ana (Milena Smit), is a frightened adolescent, whose mother Teresa (Aitana Sanchez-Gijon) is an ambitious, middle-aged actress on tour in the play “Dona Rosita the Spinster” by Federico Garcia Lorca.
The two expectant mothers bond. Both mothers give birth to daughters. When Janis introduces the father Arturo (Israel Elejalde), a forensic anthropologist no less, to his daughter, Arturo is surprised by the child’s “ethnic” look.
Arturo has been hired by Janis to handle the excavation of the remains of her greatgrandfather from a mass grave outside his village. The mass murder has left an enormous void in the dead man’s village, where many inhabitants still cherish photos and personal belongings of their lost ones. The excavation, which is like a macabre birth, is the film’s primary metaphor, reminding us of traumatic events from the past than both horrify us and bind us together and of the hold the past has on us.
On a hunch, Janis reconnects with Ana only to learn that Ana’s child suffered a “crib death.”
“Parallel Mothers” will prove to us that deaths from almost 100 years ago can be as relevant and painful as ones that happened a week ago. Almost 100,000 Spaniards went “missing” during the war, something that continues to estrange and polarize modern-day citizens of Spain.
Arturo is married to a woman battling cancer. When Janis announces her intention to have the baby, he steps away. We will learn that Ana’s pregnancy was sordid.
During the excavation, a glass eye will help identify a skull. We hear the the late Janis Joplin sing “Summertime” on the soundtrack and learn that Janis was named after this 1960s rock music icon. Notably, the homosexual playwright Lorca was also an early casualty of the Spanish Civil War.
“Parallel Mothers” is in many ways Almodovar’s version of James Joyce’s short story “The Dead.” Like “The Dead,” “Parallel Mothers” is about the ties that bind a small group and all Spaniards to their forebears, exposing our strengths, weaknesses, identities, secrets and lies.
The mothers in the film are forever changed and made stronger by motherhood. It links them to their children and to each other in ways that are both completely surprising and utterly banal. It makes them different from their pre-motherhood selves. With an award-worthy performance from his frequent collaborator Cruz, Almodovar has woven yet another artful tale of passion, desire, family and ancestry. The final image of the still-grieving villagers will break your heart.
(“Parallel Mothers” contains sexually suggestive material.)