Volver - return
| Movie | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| German title | Volver - return | ||
| Original title | Volver | ||
| Country of production | Spain | ||
| original language | Spanish | ||
| Publishing year | 2006 | ||
| length | 121 minutes | ||
| Age rating |
FSK 12 JMK 12 |
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| Rod | |||
| Director | Pedro Almodovar | ||
| script | Pedro Almodovar | ||
| production | Esther García Rodríguez | ||
| music | Alberto Iglesias | ||
| camera | José Luis Alcaine | ||
| cut | José Salcedo | ||
| occupation | |||
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| chronology | |||
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Volver is a tragicomic film by the Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar . It is based on an original Almodóvar script and was produced by the El Deseo SA film studio . The film opened in Spanish cinemas on March 17, 2006, and the German theatrical release was on August 3, 2006.
action
While her husband Paco is sitting on the couch at home without work, the attractive Raimunda provides various jobs for the small family's meager livelihood. For example, the mother of 14-year-old Paula takes on additional part-time jobs in addition to her work as a cleaning lady at Madrid Airport . When she comes home from work one day, Raimunda finds her daughter distraught. Paula leads her mother into the kitchen where Paco is stabbed to death on the floor. The drunk husband had sexually approached Paula, who then stabbed with the knife.
While Raimunda is clearing up the traces of the act her daughter committed in self-defense , she receives a call from her older sister Sole, who informs her that her beloved aunt Paula, after whom Raimunda named her own daughter, has died. But since Raimunda has to cover up the death of her husband, she has no time to travel to La Mancha to attend the funeral of her aunt , so she cancels Sole with a flimsy justification.
The home village of the two sisters in central Spain is hit by a treacherous east wind . This is said to be responsible for the high number of mentally ill people as well as the wildfires in the summer in which Raimunda's and Sole's parents were killed a few years earlier. During the funeral service, Sole is privy to the rumors that the superstitious women in the village tell each other. Among them is the family friend Agustina, whose mother has been missing from Soles and Raimunda's parents since she died in fire. Allegedly, Sole's late mother Irene is said to have risen from the dead and cared for the sick and confused Aunt Paula over the past few years.
When Sole returns to Madrid and parks her car in front of her home, she suddenly hears noises from the trunk. A voice who insists on being her late mother asks her to open the trunk to free her. When she does this, her mother, Irene, who was believed dead, stands in front of her. When she arrives at her apartment, Sole asks her mother how long she intends to stay. Irene replies for as long as God wants. From now on Sole lives with her mother and lets her work in her illegal domestic hairdressing business. Irene, who is also visible to other people, is introduced to the customers as a Russian homeless person whom Sole accepted out of pity. The mother pretends to be Russian and doesn't exchange a word with the customers, she just washes their hair.
Sole hides Raimunda's return of her mother. Raimunda, on the other hand, successfully covered up the killing and pretends to those around her that her husband has abandoned her. In fact, Raimunda has hidden Paco's body in a freezer in a neighboring restaurant, which is closed because the owner friend wants to sell it. She puts the restaurant back into operation without the knowledge of the owner and actually makes a profit when a film crew wants to be entertained. Finally, Raimunda also succeeds in getting rid of her husband's body. With the help of a friend, she transports the freezer with Paco's body to a remote location on the Júcar River in La Mancha. There the two women dig a pit in which they bury the freezer with the corpse.
After Raimunda discovered that the alleged Russian woman who helps out in Sole's hairdressing business is her mother, who was believed to be dead, after Paula's intervention, who had already revealed herself to her grandmother, the mother and daughter finally talked. The viewer learns that Irene's husband once abused their daughter Raimunda and is not only the grandfather, but also the father of Raimunda's daughter Paula. Out of bitterness that Irene hadn't suspected anything of the abuse at the time, Raimunda broke up with her mother. When Irene finally found out about it, she decided to punish her husband. She set fire to the forest hut where he was staying with his lover, Agustina's mother. The two were surprised by the fire in their sleep and died in the fire. After the crime, Irene hid in the forest for a while, but then decided to take care of her sister Paula and live in her house. Agustina's mother's body was believed to be Irene, so Irene was considered dead, while Agustina's mother was missing from that day.
The film ends with Irene and Raimunda finally reconciling after their conversation. Since Irene has to continue to live in hiding in order not to be prosecuted for the death of her husband and Agustina's mother, she decides to move into Agustina's house and care for the seriously ill with cancer. Raimunda, however, now wants to officially continue to operate the restaurant.
History of origin
Volver (Eng .: “to return”, “to do something again” ) is based on an original script by Pedro Almodóvar, who set the story in the region of La Mancha, where the filmmaker spent his childhood. For the production of his sixteenth feature film, Almodóvar was able to fall back on his usual cameraman and film composer. José Luis Alcaine was responsible for the pictures of Almodóvar's last film La Mala Educación - Bad Education (2003), composer Alberto Iglesias wrote the film music for Everything about my mother (1999) and Talk to her (2002). Esther García Rodríguez , who had been involved in ten Almodóvar productions since Matador (1986), was responsible for the production .
Filming for Volver - Return took place from July 26th to October 17th, 2005 on original locations, including the Spanish capital Madrid and Almagro in the province of Ciudad Real , Castile-La Mancha. Penélope Cruz , Carmen Maura and Lola Dueñas were hired for the leading roles . In 1997, Cruz had worked for the first time on Almodóvar's Live Flesh with the director, who, two years later, helped her to international fame through the role of the AIDS -suffered nun María Rosa in All About My Mother . Despite Hollywood film roles such as Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky (2002) and Breck Eisner's action film Sahara - Adventure in the Desert (2005), Cruz's success as an actress in the USA was denied and she only had liaisons with film partner Tom Cruise ( Vanilla Sky ) and Matthew McConaughey ( Sahara ) made headlines in the international tabloids. Carmen Maura had worked with Pedro Almodóvar since her first feature film Pepi, Luci, Bom and the Rest of the Gang (Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón) (1980) and in 1988 with the lead role of Pepa in his tragicomedy Women on the Edge of Nervous breakdown received the praise of international critics. Lola Dueñas had a supporting role in Speak with her (2002), the actress of Aunt Paula, Chus Lampreave , has played numerous roles since Entre tinieblas (1983).
reception
The film premiered on March 10, 2006 in Puertollano , Castile-La Mancha, and opened a week later, on March 17, with great success in Spanish cinemas. On May 19, 2006, Volver - Returning ran in the competition at the Cannes Film Festival , where it won critical acclaim. Almodóvar's cheerful staging was praised, with which he commemorated earlier works such as What did I do that? (1984) or women on the verge of a nervous breakdown (1987). The performance of the cast ensemble was also in the focus of the critics. The main actress Penélope Cruz was particularly distinguished from the ranks of actors, and her play has been compared to such renowned actors as Sophia Loren or Anna Magnani . Pedro Almodóvar said that Volver - returning is the most intimate return to its origin. “It's the topic that touches me. I felt something really special, a kind of reconciliation with my roots. I was born in La Mancha, I lived in Madrid, I traveled a lot, but most of all this film reconciles me with my youth ... In Volver I speak of the women around me when I was a child. I was raised by women, the men I practically never saw were in the fields. Volver talks about the way I grew up listening to these women. "
Negative voices noted that Almodóvar had neglected to take up another big subject in his latest film after topics such as greed, murder, death from cancer and deadly jealousy. The friendliness to life and people with which he surrounds his characters in Volver - Return seems stale, said Wolfgang Höbel in his online review for Der Spiegel. The film opened in German cinemas on August 3, 2006. In the United States, where the film was released in select theaters on October 20, 2006 by Sony Pictures Classics distribution under the English title Return , Volver received an "R" rating from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). As a result, young people under the age of 17 can only watch the film if they are accompanied by a parent or adult.
The film was first broadcast on German free TV on June 25, 2009 at 10:45 p.m. on ARD .
Reviews
"His competition entry Volver ... is clearly structured, told straightforwardly, despite some improbabilities of this ghost story, and probably the most accessible film by the Spaniard to date, a film that nobody wants to argue about."
"It is the Spaniard's one film that it is impossible not to like, an audience flatterer par excellence with tanned beauties, dark secrets and black humor ... Volver is a first hint of old age, freed from fashionable shrillness, a timeless film."
“As the Spanish title suggests, Volver is a return, in many ways. For example to Pedro Almodóvar's home village in the La Mancha region, where he sets a cinematic monument to the women of his childhood, their wisdom, their solidarity and half-pagan spirituality. It is also a return to the simple, direct aesthetic of the early Almodóvar films, when not every motif was mirrored, not every setting stylized and the wallpaper was not yet coordinated with the heroine's dress. "
“And finally filmmaker Almodóvar is returning to his home region of La Mancha, where the stiff east wind causes disastrous fires, but ignites memories with the same force. Nothing goes away, everything returns. And so in what is perhaps his most personal work, the director processes both the perceived threat from patriarchy as well as the security he found in the women of his childhood. You can also put it this way: Almodóvar made a wonderfully anti-male film. "
Remarks
- When director Pedro Almodóvar began drafting the script, he first had the role of her film daughter Paula in mind for Penélope Cruz . As the story unfolded, he decided to give the actress the role of Raimunda .
- In order to make Penélope Cruz look even more seductive, Almodóvar helped and had the bottom of his leading actress "padded".
- Leocadia gives the plot of the whole film in the film My Blossoming Secret as a synopsis for her new novel, which no longer fits into the world of the kitsch novels otherwise written by her.
- The title Volver is also an allusion to the tango of the same name by Carlos Gardel (music) and Alfredo Le Pera (text). In the film, this song is played in a flamenco version sung by Estrella Morente , which Penélope Cruz puts in his mouth as a lip-synchronized playback .
- The strong easterly wind prevailing in La Mancha and the resulting increased rate of the mentally ill in this region is an allusion to Cervantes' Don Quixote , who in his madness fights windmills in Mancha as giants.
Awards
At the 59th Cannes International Film Festival , Pedro Almodóvar competed with Volver - Return for the second time since 1999. Seven years earlier, the Spaniard had been awarded the Director's Prize and the Ecumenical Jury Prize for Everything About My Mother . In 2006 the Spanish production competed for the Palme d'Or for the best film with works by Alejandro González Iñárritus ( Babel ), Aki Kaurismäkis ( Lights of the Suburbs ) and Nanni Morettis ( The Italian ) , but had to win Ken Loach's The Wind That Shakes the Barley give up. With Penélope Cruz, Carmen Maura, Lola Dueñas, Yohana Cobo , Chus Lampreave and Blanca Portillo , the female acting ensemble received the award for best actress . Pedro Almodóvar received the award for the best screenplay .
The film was also awarded four European Film Awards, including director Almodóvar and Penélope Cruz as best actress . At the 2007 Golden Globe Awards , the film received two nominations, while at the Oscars lead actress Penélope Cruz had to admit defeat to the favorite British actress Helen Mirren ( The Queen ).
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literature
- Pedro Almodóvar: Volver . Madrid: Ocho y Medio, Libros de cine: El Deseo, 2006. ISBN 84-96582-14-0 (Spanish edition)
Web links
- Volver - Return in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Official English website for the film
- Official Spanish website for the film
- Website of the German distributor for the film
- Volver - returning to Cannes; Information, scene photos and photos from the press conference etc.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Age rating for Volver - Return . Youth Media Commission .
- ↑ Filmdienst.de, and Filmstarts.de ( Memento of the original from October 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
