Word: filming
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...close focus follows an IV line. The sense of determinism continues to operate as an amorphous force in every subsequent scene. The next shot is a scene in an impeccably furnished apartment in Madrid. Manuela, an organ-transplant nurse played by Cecilia Roth (a luminary of the foreign film industry, with an uncanny ability to evoke tears) sits watching All About Eve with her son, Esteban (Eloy Azorin). Esteban is turning 17 the next day, and his eyes seem bright with literary genius and joie d'vivre. The relationship between mother and son is close, with Manuela and Esteban joking...
...through various mirrors and glass, and fades into true dimensions through moving the camera first back and then rapidly forward. The scene becomes reminiscent of a trip to the Hall of Mirrors and dilutes the power of the event that acts as a watershed for the rest of the film's plot...
...However, after Esteban's death, Almodvar supplies the pretentious and melodramatic art film twist, losing the faith of anyone aside from the loyal film aficionado. Manuel donates Esteban's heart and goes to Barcelona in search of Esteban's father, a transvestite originally an Esteban himself but now Lola the Pioneer. The depiction of one train moving forward and another train moving backward, when coupled with Manuela's voice-over of the history and purpose for her journey detract from Almodvar's intention that the scene serve as a point of transition and departure. In an almost music-video-like...
...film's artistry borders on the over-done as the melodrama envelops the audience. The wallpaper patterns are reminiscent of '60s acid tripping posters, and the rooms seem too perfectly contrived. While red is normally a color used on camera to draw attention to an actress in a scene or emphasize a particular state of emotion in a drama, the women in All About My Mother are continuously cloaked in red. Thus, dress provides no clues as to where scenes of tension replace scenes of relaxation. Visually, each scene has an obnoxious similarity to the one before. Despite the melodrama...
...dedicated to "all actresses who have played actresses, to all women who act, to men who act and become women, to all the people who want to be mothers." Almodvar's intention is successful, for while the melodrama and subject context is difficult for anyone other than a film buff to appreciate, he does capture a heart-warming study of women who move from self-delusion to reconciliation...