Word: raimunda
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...tracking shot through the cemetery in a Spanish village, as dozens of widows polish the tombstones of their late husbands. It is a collective act of devotion, of civic pride and maybe (from what we learn later in the film) of atonement. Among the mourner-scrubwomen are two sisters, Raimunda (Penélope Cruz) and Soledad (Lola Dueñas), tending the grave of their mother Irene (Carmen Maura), dead these four years. Visiting Irene's older, failing sister Aunt Paula (Chus Lampreave), they hear the daft woman's claim that she has been cared for by Irene's ghost...
...Raimunda's life is also full of incident. She has returned to Madrid with her 14-year-old daughter, also named Paula (Yohana Cobo), only to find her layabout husband Paco in a drunken sulk. Soon after, Raimunda learns that Paco had sexually assaulted Paula and, in self-defense, she knifed him to death. Now, what does Raimunda do with the body? A neighbor pops in to say he's going away and leaving her to mind his restaurant next door. Raimunda and Paula drag Paco's body there to stash it. Almodóvar has managed, suavely and plausibly...
...play is full of contrasts and tragic ironies that grow with reflection. The struggles of Raimunda to protect her daughter and the honor of her family; the useless resistance of Esteban to the "envious, evil mind" that is controlling his life; the guilty love of Acacia for her stepfather, concealed until the last moment under a mask of hate; and the remorseless jealously of the dead, that finally confounds sweet-heart and enemy in one final ruin-these are the elements that, under Benavente's touch, take life and from upon the stage. The slow movement of the tragedy affords...