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Pedro Almodovar hails from La Mancha, popularly known as the land of Don Quixote. No wonder the renowned Spanish film-maker has a quixotic streak in him. His movies are set in a contemporary urban milieu, but they exude an old-world charm and whimsy. "You are more authentic the more you resemble the things you’ve dreamed of," says a character in one of his finest films, All About My Mother (1999). Switching effortlessly from the real to the surreal, from the tragic to the farcical — his eye-catching cinema rarely fails to surprise and stimulate. The 57-year-old director, arguably the most brilliant to come from Spain after master surrealist Luis Bunuel, returns to his birthplace in his latest film Volver, which will be the opening film at the International Film Festival of India-2006 in Goa next week. "It’s about the culture of death in La Mancha," he says. "My folks there live in astonishing simplicity. The richness and humanity of their rites makes it possible for the dead to never really die." Volver (which means "coming back") is a trademark paean to womanhood from Almodovar, whose films usually revolve around eves of all hues — passionate, gutsy, vengeful, obsessive and whatnot (men are secondary or at times redundant in his scheme of things). The bewitching Penelope Cruz, who carved a niche for herself in Spanish cinema before being lured by Hollywood, plays a hard-working woman who is confronted by the ghost of her dead mother (Carmen Maura). The film marks Almodovar’s long-awaited reunion with Carmen, who has given unforgettable performances in his best early films, such as the deliriously delightful Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988) and Law of Desire (1987). The superb supporting cast features Lola Duenas, Blanca Portillo, Yohana Cobo and Chus Lampreave. Interestingly, the entire female brigade of Volver won the best actress award at the Cannes festival earlier this year. Almodovar himself walked away with the best screenplay award. The rave reviews won by Penelope for Volver underline the fact that Spanish cinema is way ahead of Hollywood in tapping her considerable talent. Her roles in English flicks like Woman on Top, Vanilla Sky and Sahara pale in comparison with her commendable work in Spanish movies like Fernando Trueba’s The Girl of Your Dreams and Almodovar’s All About My Mother, in which she played a pregnant nun suffering from AIDS. Volver has been chosen as the Spanish entry for the Academy Awards to be announced in February next year. The movie’s trans-Atlantic success has made it a strong contender in the foreign language film category. It might also receive nominations for best film, best director and best actress (Penelope). In fact, Almodovar already has two Oscars in his kitty — the best foreign film award for All About My Mother (the closing film at IFFI-2000) and the best screenplay award for Talk to Her (2002). Moreover, Spain has the distinction of winning the foreign film Oscar thrice in the past 13-odd years — the other two bagged by Fernando Trueba’s Belle Epoque (1992) and Alejandro Amenabar’s The Sea Inside (2004). The once-flamboyant
Almodovar might have mellowed down in recent years — Volver has
been called "conventional" and "subdued" by some
critics — but he has firmly established himself among the leading
directors in Europe, which remains the hub of creative, meaningful
cinema.
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