Death and the mother

Noel Vera

Instituto Cervantes' "Pelikula IV" kicks off this end of September
at Greenbelt Cinema 1 with not just Spanish but a variety of Latin
American films; two of the best-known would be Pedro
Almodovar's "Todos sobre mi madre" (All About My Mother, 1999), and
Alejandro Amenabar's "Mar adentro" (The Sea Inside, 2004).

"Todos sobre mi madre" represented some kind of turning point in
Almodovar's career; before this his films were known in festival
circuits for their bright colors, and outrageous camp; then "Mujeres
al borde de un ataque de nervios" (Woman on the Verge of a Nervous
Breakdown, 1988) happened, and suddenly Almodovar was an
international star. He's been foundering since, either trying to
outdo the shock value of his earlier films ("Atame" (Tie Me Up! Tie
Mez Down! 1990)), or trying to tone it down ("La flor de mi secreto"
(The Flower of My Secret, 1995). "Carne tremula" (Live Flesh, 1997)
was a crucial turning point, a relatively subdued film where the
drama was actually involving, and not just a framework for deadpan
farce; with "Todos," he would parley this newfound seriousness into
yet another international hit.

"Todos" opens with a young man crossing a road to meet a favorite
actress, only to be mowed down by a passing car. Almodovar doesn't
milk the scene for black comedy, or comedy of any kind; it's meant
to be straight tragedy, with the youth's mother Manuela (Cecilia
Roth) looking on with an expression of pure horror. Manuela feels
she has to inform the father of the boy's death, and goes on a comic
odyssey to find him; along the way, she gets reacquainted with old
friends (Agrado, a transsexual played by Antonia San Juan), meets
new ones (Sister Sanz, played by a then-unknown Penelope Cruz) and
even talks to Huma Rojo (Marisa Paredes), the actress in a way
responsible for what happened to her son.

It's a tragicomic film, or a film that begins with tragedy, goes on
in a series of comic twists and turns, then lands gently in the end
with a sad reminder of what started Manuela's journey in the first
place. Audiences loved it, and so did critics--they hailed a new
Almodovar, a more mature filmmaker who has outgrown his desire to
shock and settled on simply moving us.

I don't buy it; I never saw anything the matter with the old
Almodovar, other than that he was on a rut--desperately trying out
ever-kinkier forms of sexual perversity on us as if we were jaded
sex-shop customers--and that he needed to recharge his
batteries. "Todos" is different from anything he's done before
(although I've pointed out "Carne tremula" and perhaps even "La flor
de mi secreto" as possible ancestors) but not necessarily an
improvement: we have dozens of dramatists from the age of classic
Hollywood, everyone from George Cukor to Douglas Sirk (and in fact
Almodovar takes much of his color cues from Sirk) but for a time
there only one Almodovar*; now that he's 'settled down,' as you
might say, and gone on to make films just like everyone else's, that
unique wildness is gone.

*On the subject of near-surreal comic camp, Philippine cinema may
have pre-empted or even surpassed Almodovar: witness Joey
Gosengfiao's "Temptation Island" (1981--no connection to the reality
show), where a bevy of beauty contest competitors find themselves
stranded on a deserted island, trying to both bitch and survive at
the same time. It's a truly bizarre film, full of double entrendes,
non-sequiturs, and the odd hallucinatory vision involving gigantic
servings of fried chicken and ice cream, ending in a climax where
everyone sits down to dinner singing Stephen Sondheim's "Somewhere."

Alejandro Amenabar started from a different track, that of noirish
style and Hitchcockian suspense, and his career has gone well
enough: from the low-budget thrills of "Tesis" (Thesis, 1996) to the
international hit "Abras los ojos" (Open Your Eyes, 1997--remade
into the far less interesting Tom Cruise vehicle "Vanilla Sky") and
the stylishly memorable "The Others" (2001). "Mar adentro" is
Amenabar's bid to do serious drama, and in this he's helped not a
little by the terrific material (based on the story of Ramon
Sampedro, a quadriplegic who fought with the Spanish government for
thirty years for the right to kill himself) and by the actor playing
Sampedro--Javier Bardem, whose performance here is so good it's
heartbreaking. You see the unparalyzed Sampedro in quick flashbacks,
standing on the high rocks like a young god about to dive in a pool
of deceitful water (at the bottom of which he'll break his reckless
neck); for most of the film Bardem's physical eloquence is confined
to either bed or wheelchair, his characteristically rich, deep voice
half-smothered to simulate the lack of proper muscles giving
sufficient air. Bardem's Sampedro is his own worse argument for
ceasing to live: with all the charisma and poetry he can muster from
his mattress, with all the people close by willing to support and
love him no matter what he does or want, it's a mystery why he'd
want to end it all--a mystery that haunts you up to the picture's
end, and beyond.

The film is perhaps hampered by the lack of a compelling opposition--
at most you have a fellow paralyzed priest in a wheelchair too big
to bring into Sampedro's second-story bedroom, yelling theological
arguments up the stairwell in the hope of dissuading the man.
Sampedro argues his case so convincingly and eloquently you wonder
why it took him thirty years without success (I've mentioned his
personal charisma and ostensibly happy life--but that's from our
point of view, having learned so much about him; we need to see or
better still feel the reason why the government is so adamant in
keeping him alive). Despite this not unserious flaw, the film
achieves a sense of tragedy--we feel a personal sense of loss at
this man's passing, the same time we feel happy that he's gotten
what he's always wanted, a contradictory set of feelings that is
perhaps the most memorable aspect of this film.

(First appeared in Businessworld, 9/30/05)

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