ViewBytes: Volver

Volver: 2006: Pedro Almodovar

Volver is a dark movie with bright colors and a flair for feminine consanguinity, and throughout the film a sort of gruesome gaeity revels in how death changes our life.

Penolope Cruz plays Raimunda, one of two sisters nursing their dying aunt and still dealing with their mothers death. Raimunda is also a mother in a complicated marital situation. That’s all I’ll say, as to avoid spoiling the plot. She is fine in this film, but she is constantly upstaged by death.  Death is center to the film’s various plots, with the title name “Volver” translating as “to come back, return.” The deceased weave their way around the line separating this world from the next in such a matter that the two almost meld on screen.

Death is grandiose here, and with it comes immediate life-changing opportunities.  With four deaths forming the film’s plot, a woman opens a restaurant after her husband dies, and a mother flees town after a charred body is assumed hers. Almodovar crafts a quirky family of women who love each other, but only truly come to life in the cradle of death.

The most moving scene in Volver oddly comes when Raimunda realizes her dead mother is actually still with her, in the house, realized by smelling the familiar scent of her flatulence. Viva Almodovar.

Trailer: