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PARALLEL MOTHERS (MADRES PARALELAS) (15)
PARALLEL MOTHERS (MADRES PARALELAS) (15)
Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Runtime: 2h1m
Cast: Penélope Cruz, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, Milena Smit, Israel Elejalde, Julieta Serrano, and Rossy de Palma
Synopsis: Two women, Janis and Ana, coincide in a hospital room where they are going to give birth. Both are single and became pregnant by accident. Janis, middle-aged, doesn’t regret it and she is exultant. The other, Ana, an adolescent, is scared, repentant and traumatised. Janis tries to encourage her while they move like sleepwalkers along the hospital corridors. The few words they exchange in these hours will create a very close link between the two, which by chance develops and complicates, and changes their lives in a decisive way.
URL: https://youtu.be/TBo1pcwvZjo
Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar’s new feature film Parallel Mothers – starring his long-time collaborators Penélope Cruz, Rossy de Palma and Julieta Serrano as well as Milena Smit, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón and Israel Elejalde – premiered as the opening film of the 78th Venice International Film Festival on 1 September 2021, where Penélope Cruz was awarded the Volpi Cup for Best Actress.
Two women, Janis (Cruz) and Ana (Smit) are strangers who meet in a hospital room where they are going to give birth. All they have in common is that both are single and became pregnant by accident. Janis, middle-aged, doesn’t regret it and she is exultant. The other, Ana, an adolescent, is scared, repentant and traumatized. Janis tries to encourage her while they pace the hospital corridors. The few words they exchange in these hours will create a very close bond between the two, which complicates and forever changes their lives in a decisive way.
Pedro Almodóvar’s script also blends an emotionally turbulent story about the sins of the past with the story of a family’s hopeful future in a mature and thought-provoking way.
Janis (Cruz) is a Madrid photographer who is determined she will raise her daughter as a single mum, just as her mother and grandmother did before her.
Her married lover, Arturo (Israel Elejalde) a forensic archaeologist is part of a foundation responsible for exhuming the remains of those killed during the Spanish Civil War. Janis wants his help to reclaim her great-grandfather’s body, supposedly buried in a mass grave outside his old village.
With two poignant storylines, brilliantly interwoven, Parallel Mothers is another superb achievement from writer/director Almodovar. His characters are never typical, but always human, flawed but full of love. He tackles Franco’s mass murders and the need to never forget them in a subtle but powerful manner. Penelope Cruz delivers a powerhouse Oscar-worthy performance in a film that best displays her talents and reminds of the pleasures of Almodovar’s filmmaking.
The film is a celebration of female solidarity and makeshift families, that examines
the past and looks to the future and connects them.
Parellel Mothers faces hardship and tragedy but Almodóvar’s conclusion is a message of hope for today’s Spanish citizens about confronting the past – recent or historic.
In cinemas January 28
Images courtesy of: Pathe
