This short comment was only recently written after a few years of watching the movie. I started watching Almodóvar's film from "Speaking to Her". "Speaking to Her" is a relatively simple movie with a concentrated expression, which I am used to and appreciate. Relatively speaking, the complexity of the relationship between the characters in this movie and the marginalization of his involved fields made me uncomfortable for a long time. After a long period of precipitation, I gradually gained some insights.
First of all, this film expresses Almodóvar's great respect for minorities as always, and even a tribute to them. Although the transgender, bisexual, homosexual, illegitimate and second-generation families involved in the film seem to be eye-catching and can satisfy many people's curiosity in the subcultural field, in fact, these emotional relationships are inherently fragile. And darkness is something that people in the habitual order of gender cannot experience. But the director did his best to show these things. Behind this, it is actually based on great confidence in the common points of human nature.
Second, the movie uses "mother" to dominate the film, which is not a random choice. The mother here does not mean a mother in the biological sense who forms a blood relationship with the child. Because not long after the movie started, the mother lost her son forever. Therefore, the director feels that the mother who is in the spiritual person, that is, motherhood, can really dominate everything. Maternity, transcendence, gender, blood relationship, it can produce immediate pain (the death of a personal son), but it can also be healed (adopting an illegitimate child of an ex-husband). Of course, there are many elements that are too idealistic here, and this is where this movie is often criticized. Almodóvar made it clear that this movie is used to remember and pay tribute to his mother, which shows that there is a complex in it. And in fact, it is necessary to comfort the sense of isolation and disillusionment of each specific individual in this marginal group; to protect their rationality of existence and emotional bonds, it is still necessary to rely on rigid legal guarantees and social acceptance based on political correctness. not enough. There must be a human, spontaneous, and eternal thing as an axial existence to bridge all this fragmentation. From the director's point of view, only motherhood can do this.
Finally, I still want to discuss the issue of ideals. Obviously, this movie has such a little ideal, and its symbolic and conceptualization are all concrete manifestations of this ideal orientation. The living conditions of many people presented in the film have not been well implemented, so they are considered too conceptual and too abstract, and even criticized as unrealistic, which is also part of the truth. However, to pay attention to marginalized groups and subcultures, it is necessary to cross the barriers of reality and try to establish another kind of interpersonal and emotional order. However, this order cannot be completely separated from reality, and forms a parallel relationship with reality. This is also the reason why the connotation of motherhood will be greatly expanded in the movie. The director hopes to dig out the divine factors in maternity, which transcends blood relatives, and understands the true relationship and emotional relationship between people as the only fact. In contrast, he also very calmly pointed out the fragile nature of this marginal group and the crisis of destruction from time to time. And this crisis is not just a crisis unique to marginalized groups, but a crisis of the entire modern society and modern civilization. Isn't the reality we live in the same fragile and vulnerable? Even if it is heterosexual, even in marriage, parent-child relationship, can we get the absolute protection and help of the civilized system? Modern buildings are crumbling and everyone is in danger. Where is our home? Only the mother, the mother is the place where a person comes from, is the foundation for the birth and growth of a living body, so it will eventually become a final destination, just as each of us will eventually return to the embrace of the mother.
Of course, you can say that it is just a personal, immature and incomplete understanding of the director. It has many loopholes, such as the danger of sanctifying motherhood. But the advantage of Almodovar is that his films are always very affectionate and passionate. He is not a philosopher or thinker, but he is definitely an artist. The artist's thinking itself is limited, too ideal, and even impulsive and superficial, but his artistic feeling and emotional abundance can still make up for these shortcomings. I guess that he originally hoped to reach a certain level of thinking through this movie. He has this ambition. No matter whether he succeeds or not, he finally did not lose the touching elements in his movie. He is still That Almodovar.
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