Miscellaneous Movie Musings

[Alex]

Capped off a fun, impromptu day in the city yesterday by seeing Volver. This is the latest offering from the amazing Pedro Almodóvar (Talk to Her, All About My Mother, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!).

What I love about Almodóvar is that while he has all the skills you could ask for from a director he keeps it all grounded in good storytelling. The work of so many directors is simply mundane and must be covered up with non-linear storytelling, kinetic editing, or other flashes (none of which are bad, inherently, but are too often used to cover flaws). But Almodóvar is confident enough to just tell his story from beginning to end. Moving the camera when it needs to move, getting greatness of his actors, putting cuts where they're needed.

Volver isn't a life changing movie. It won't leave you reevaluating the universe. But it is a great story, a pleasure to experience. It also proves that when not focused on minimizing her accent, Penelope Cruz is quite the actress.

The movie does continue two trends seen previously in Almodóvar movies: first, he hasn't much use for men (total screen time for men in this two hour movie: about 5 minutes) and he is really quite fond of Cruz's breasts (as well we all should be).

If you don't like subtitled movies then you probably won't like this one (though there isn't a lot of action competing for your eye-time) but otherwise you should seek it out (and you may need to seek hard, it is is in pretty limited release).