Great Films:All About My Mother; by Pedro Almodóvar (1999)

Pedro Almodóvar’s “All about My Mother” ends with this dedication:

"A Bette Davis, Gena Rowlands, Romy Schneider.... A todas las actrices que han hecho de actrices, a todas las mujeres que actúan y se convierten en mujeres, a todas las personas que quirren ser madres. A mi madre." [To Bette Davis, Gena Rowlands, Romy Schneider….To all actresses who have played actresses. To all women who act. To men who act and become women. To all the people who want to be mothers. To my mother.]

They represent the best short description of this film: it is about actresses, mothers, transsexuals; women in general.

Pedro Almodóvar is certainly the most famous son of La Mancha, Spain after Don Quixote. Son of an illiterate villager, and completely self-educated in the craft of film-making, Almodóvar is the proof of the miracle called cinema. His directorial career has been one roller-coaster ride, where he has succeeded to break down almost all the taboos imaginable, transgressed every norm of film genres. He is, by far, the most significant ‘women’s director’ alive and working among us: despite the plethora of women directors in the scene, none have achieved the extent of womanhood Almodóvar has encompassed as an Auteur. His films constitute the canon we must study to understand the ‘feminine position’ of our time. His films are replete with homosexual and transsexual characters, who, unlike the Hollywood stereotypes, are quite happy and well-placed within their own sexualities. His films exude a florid joyousness that is truly his own. But, enough of Almodóvar for now. Let us get back to the film. “All about my Mother” [Todo Sobre mi Madre, 1999] is arguably his most mature and poignant film to date that deals with womanhood, motherhood, sexual identity, and existence in general. It garnered more awards and honors than any other film in the Spanish motion picture industry; Almodóvar won the Best Director award at Cannes, the film won Best Foreign Language Film Award in the Oscars, and it was a surprise to everyone that Cecilia Roth, the lead actress of the film, did not win any awards at the festivals.

The film tells the story of a nurse named Manuela (Cecilia Roth) who works in Madrid and lives with her teenage son Esteban, who never knew his father, and wants to be a writer. One night after watching a stage production of Tennessee Williams' play, A Streetcar Named Desire, Esteban is running after the car of Huma Rojo (Marisa Paredes), the actress who plays Blanche DuBois in the play, to get an autograph when he is hit by a car and dies. Manuela sees the accident and, despondent, leaves Madrid to visit her son's father, Lola, who is a transvestite and a prostitute in Barcelona, and inform him of the existence of the son he never knew existed. While in Barcelona, Manuela reunites with an old friend, a warm and witty transsexual prostitute named Agrado (Antonia San Juan), named so apparently because she wants to make everyone else’s life agreeable, chiefly by telling quirky jokes and giving blowjobs. She also meets and becomes deeply involved with Sister Rosa (Penélope Cruz), a young, pregnant nun suffering from AIDS who has been impregnated by Manuela's ex-husband; and with Huma Rojo, the actress her son had admired. In typical Almodóvar fashion, the film moves through segments of unabashed melodramas, yet never losing the grip, never becoming cheap, and never overdoing the sorrow. It is almost magical to watch Almodóvar making these tight-rope walks again and again, and succeeding in making something that cuts still too deep. Almodóvar, in his use of melodrama, does not expose, but de-centers it, not allowing the narrative to reach its cathartic climax. The end result is a fragmentary landscape of human emotions that feels heart-rendingly sincere.

This is the second Almodóvar film I have seen; the first one was Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios). Unlike the earlier hilariously funny, sarcastic, internationally acclaimed film, “All about my Mother” is far more serious in tone. I certainly liked this film more than the first one. The mise-en-scene of Barcelona, the color schemes, the theatrical interludes works almost damn perfectly. This is as perfect as such idiosyncratic film can get.

The mothers of this film are not like the American ones, dropping their children at school and making French toasts, wearing their veritable Joan of Arc faces like enchanted talismans. Here, motherhood is a desire, a source of light that breaks through tremendous amount of pain and suffering. There is something Beethoven-like in the way Almodóvar expresses the joyousness inherent in womanhood through layers of deep agony. Yet, his treatment is not that of Beethoven, it is rather Schubertian in texture.

Yet, what is even more present through his absence is The Father: in the film, Manuela’s son writes in his notebook,

“This morning I looked through my mother’s bedroom until I found a stack of photographs. All of them were cut in half. My father, I suppose. I have the impression that my life is missing that same half. I want to meet him; I don’t care who he is, or how he treated my mother. No one can take that right away from me.”

In Almodóvar, the father is the supplement, the absent presence that haunts everyone. Sometimes the father may seem to be an utopia, even, but in totality, Almodóvar manages to keep a very subtle balance. In fact, the greatness of Almodóvar lies in his almost inhuman sense of balance: balance between utopia and dystopia, between melodrama and its extreme opposite, between feminism and its opposite. Only if every one had the subtlety to be so!

Cecilia Roth is simply brilliant as Manuela; standing among many exceptionally well-acted female characters, her character seems to be the strongest, one closest to the heart of the film, yet vulnerable and fragile like any other mother going through the loss of a son. An actress of lesser skill and understanding would have overdid the sorrow of this character and marred the film; on the contrary, Cecilia manages to show the humor, the strength, the intelligence of the character within that realm of sorrow. In short, I have discovered here in Cecilia Roth, an Argentinean actress, an able actor of flawless potential. Early in the film, after Esteban, Manuela’s son, is hit by a car, we see Manuela running towards him in a perspective shot. It represents the most difficult and the most pivotal moment of the film: although treated in a conventional albeit technically brilliant manner, it conveys something so intimate and passionate that seems disturbing. It represents the precarious chance Almodóvar takes by placing utmost importance on the acting skills of actors. Marisa Paredes, Penélope Cruz, and Antonia San Juan, deliver tremendous salvos of acting prowess, creating rounded characters that not only carry the film, they create it. In our days, there is rarely another film director who puts such weight on actors' abilities.

There are many more things to be said about this film: it has the potential to be widely discussed in cinema study courses across the world. But that will entail more exposure of the plot, and that will mar the delicious exuberance of this film. It is a great film, a near-perfect film, I can say this without any hesitation; it represents the pinnacle of one of the most original directors of our time. Recently, the film has been adopted for stage in London; people are flocking once again to savor the marvel of this narrative. The film is available in India through pirated Penélope Cruz collections; if you get a chance, DO NOT miss this film. It will be an unpardonable sin.

BAIDURYA CHAKRABARTI

A DESPERATE CAUSE: AMERICAN HOMOGENIZATION IN FILM DISTRIBUTION

What I write today is not an article or a review, but a desperate plea to the cineastes around the world. This is but a small, insignificant voice, and dreaming of any palpable result to come out of this would be an act of sad delusion. But, since, as a cineaste, I tend to experience a pang of conscience every now and then, I will, with little hope, try to expunge my misgivings. Please do not take it as an attempt to wash my hands off through words and persuasions: I am no Pilate, and my position is not so comfortable. I am only striving towards a small pocket of resistance in my own undersized, even ridiculous way against a dangerous trend of homogenization recently seen in the field of film distribution that will, in the long run, prove to be disastrous for films.

Even the most hard-core film enthusiasts tend to overlook the production side of a film. We do not realize how the success, and even more significantly, construction of the text of a film, depends on how it is produced, how it is distributed, when, and where. We tend to overlook the wide variety of tastes that exist across the apparently homogeneous region of America and Western Europe. The fact is, the Continental and the British film industry, to certain extent, has provided a niche for some of the most idiosyncratic and original film directors of Hollywood. Woody Allen acknowledges that he “survives” on European market:

“In the United States things have changed a lot, and it's hard to make good small films now……….. The avaricious studios couldn't care less about good films – if they get a good film they're twice as happy, but money-making films are their goal. They only want these $100 million pictures that make $500 million" [From a 2004 interview. See http://film.guardian.co.uk/interview/interviewpages/0,6737,1278451,00.html].

Films of Woody Allen, Wes Anderson and others still exist and are being made because there is a culturally superior space called Europe. From a broad perspective, third world countries still strive to make good, personal films in hope for recognition from the European continent, especially from the festival circuit. It is these recognitions bestowed by the festivals that generate a small, niche market for such films. Of course, they can be criticized for such Eurocentric attitude, but we cannot deny the fact that we, as nations, generally fail to provide a market for such films. In short, without the European market, the existence of Iranian or East European films will be in terrible jeopardy. There is more in stake here than most of us can imagine: the whole phenomena of ‘cinemas’ depend on such markets. If they collapse, we will see only ‘cinema’ the way personal computers mean Windows and Microsoft to us.

By now, I might have made you impatient. So, what exactly is this story about? It is about a Hollywood attempt to break down such distinct and individual markets, and create one big, shopping-mall-&-Christmas-movie market throughout the world. I agree that this is an old story that has been going on for some time, but now it has reached an acute stage never experienced or imagined before. Let’s start with some examples.

From January 1, 2007, United International Pictures stopped functioning in 15 key countries across Europe. What is UIP? UIP was established as a European film distribution conglomerate by Paramount, Universal, MGM, and United Artists in the year 1981. It might sound strange that three of the major, fiercely competitive Hollywood powers had agreed to work together, but their reasoning was sound and simple at the time. Before the Age of Digitals ---even before the faxes were efficient—maintaining a distributing office in Europe was costly. They needed expertise to judge the pulse of the European cine-going audience. For these, and other practical reasons, such as, dollar exchange rate, they launched UIP. For last twenty-six years, UIP has been distributing American films in Europe. Its distributing choices have been according to the European taste, where a Sylvester Stallone movie has less chances of achieving the same scale of success it generally achieves in the States. They also distributed niche films from Europe as well. Now, both Paramount (with its acquisition of DreamWorks in 2006) and Universal feel (with MGM being sedate for quite some time) they no longer need such an operation. Both the companies have already opened their branches in the Continent, releasing films simultaneously in USA and in Europe. The logic is simple: since the overseas market is the biggest income-source for Hollywood studios at this point, why not try to hit as many targets as possible with one, big publicity campaign? We are not far from seeing a “Paramount Asia”, or a “Universal India”, but the problem is, they will only be “Universal” or “Paramount” a la United States only.

It does not look all that scary at first glance, does it? You need to look deeply then, mate. Ever heard of something called ‘cult films’? They are typically films that got panned by the audience at first, but then, slowly but steadily, through peer-to-peer recommendations, they got known, seen, and appreciated. With this uniformity in film distribution and release, such peer-to-peer recommendations go down the drain. With several hundred prints opening simultaneously at major locations of the world, movies will have only a week to prove themselves. Have enough glitz and spectacle in the movie, or land in the scrapheap with the speed of an unfortunate asteroid. This spells doom for small films, risk-taking etc. Without big movers backing a film, there is no future in experiments any more. Now, does it look scary? This is only the tip of the iceberg.

Let us read between the lines. What gives the confidence to these studios to directly handle a potentially alien market, such as, Europe? I think there are sufficient signs in the market to convince the studio Moguls that the European market has become similar enough to the classic USA market to risk such a venture. Hollywood, for some time now, has been as closed and as make-belief an eco-system as Disneyland or Wal-Mart is. Hollywood, by a thumb-rule, works on the lowest common denominator, seeking out the surest and drabbest movies of all. What is truly scary is the fact that audiences throughout the world are demanding such drabs with alarming intensity now-a-days. This is the debilitating disease of cultural globalization: it has the omnipotent power to glamorize the lowest dregs human civilization has ever had the misfortune to produce. Jean Baudrillard must be nodding up there in heaven, saying “I told you guys. You didn’t listen”. We never listen. Not until it is too late.

Like any other art-form, cinema is thwarted by homogeneity. It is the death of all art-forms. Yet, because Cinema is more market-oriented than any other art-form, it runs the risk of becoming homogeneous all the time. Thus, film criticism has a bigger role to play: it has the imperative duty to construct taste. Taste is about difference and diversity. Without a niche out there in the market where such differences can flourish, there can be no future to cinema as an art. Yet, such niches are detrimental to the economic aspirations of a big producer. A producer does not need many ‘small’ films, he needs a Jurassic Park, so unlike a film that show it at a science show, and kids will believe it’s a school project! This conflict between commerce and art has been going on for ages, and the burden lies on the audience to decide which side he/she is on. We live in a radically dangerous age, where every image we see on the TV, every word we read on the web can be propaganda to render us into Wal-Mart shoppers, big-film worshippers, tasteless zombies looking for spectacular voids. The whole communication system is such a huge ideology-proliferating machine that we fail to realize it is so. It is immensely difficult for us to distinguish such snares, and still crave for diverse tastes. We must be paranoid about accepting any 'given' truth on its face value. The onus is on us.

Big studios don’t need differences, they can simulate them. They will tell you that their film is not a run-of-the-mill action film because it has a ‘humanitarian message’, and you will gobble it up gladly! There are enough indications around us to prove this to be the truth, and not some wishful nightmare. Studios have been trying to infiltrate the Indian film market for quite some time now. Indian film-makers have been vying for such attention: the Sanjay Gupta-s of Bollywood are making films that can be sold as American B-movies without much dubbing. Once the studios start controlling our market, we will seldom see films like “Manorama 6 Feet Under”, “Mitthya”, and “Swaas” etc. No one will take such risks. Elite film-makers such as Belá Tarr and Buddhadeb Dasgupta-s will retain their positions: they are specialized and elite enough to not disturb the globalizing process. In fact, cultural globalization needs such film-makers to simulate a prop to prove that ‘difference’s within the film market still exists. It is the Woody Allen-s, Gus van Sant-s, Sudhir Mishra-s who will forced out of the business.

Still, there is a hope, small, but not yet impossible. The sheer bulk and repressiveness of such global homogenization creates pockets of resistance at the fringes. Video films, independent animations (as shown in Japan), B-films contain the germ of this resistance. Subtle subversions of the studio rules by great and brave film directors from Hollywood (like the Coen Brothers) contain the germ. As a film audience, we must keep our faith in such marginal efforts, such ‘virus’es, such subversions. Subversions are our goal. Margins are our homelands. If we fail to recognize the necessity of doing that now, the future will be bleaker than imagined in psychedelic nightmares.

For this article, I am greatly indebted to Nick Roddick of Sight & Sound; it is his regular column "Mr Busy" that made me aware of what was happening to UIP, and set my thoughts on the run. For his article, see Sight & Sound, June 2006, page 12/6.

BAIDURYA CHAKRABARTI