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People have been falling over each other to praise Pedro Almodovar's Volver which, according to Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian, 'has captured the hearts of everyone at Cannes.' I can vouch for at least one person whose heart remained inviolable.
At the Cannes press conference, Almodovar was asked if he would ever make a film in Hollywood. He replied that he would probably not consider it because he would lack the freedom to do exactly what he liked. Well, I have news for Pedro. He has already made it. Volver only needs a change of location to the Mid-West of America with Meryl Streep as the 'dead' mother, Shirley McLaine in a cameo as the aunt, and Penelope Cruz reprising her role as the valiant woman, a la Joan Crawford in Mildred Pierce,' and we have a typical mainstream feel-good Hollywood product.
Because the film has a cast made up entirely of women of different generations who keep kissing each other on the cheeks, critics have called it warm and wonderful. This sentimental, black comedy has none of the verve, edge, camp humour or outrageousness of his earlier films. It is also completely sexless despite the presence of Penelope Cruz, who spends most of the film fighting back glycerin tears in preparation for her Oscar acceptance speech.
The attraction of Almodovar's iconoclastic films lies in his ability to incorporate elements of underground and gay culture into mainstream forms with wide crossover appeal. The films often make the link between violence and eroticism and expertly tread the thin line between melodrama and comedy. Volvo walks this line heavily. Although the plot is as trashy as many of Almodovar's other films deconstructed television soap operas and Hollywood weepies it has been done better by the director exactly 16 times previously.
On the evidence of Volver, the 57-year-old Almodovar, who is rich and fat, is in danger of becoming soft. There is no reason why he should not surprise and shock once more. After all, directors like Federico Fellini and Luis Buñuel continued to be provocative into their 70s. There is an unfunny moment in Volver when a 'ghost' farts, an emblem for the film as a whole. Volver is a ghost of Almodovar and it stinks.
score 3/10
ronaldbee 26 May 2006
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1378208/ |
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1-12-2019 17:31:36