Volver (2006)

Spanish director Pedro Almodovar's 'Volver'is the first movie I watched from all the rest listed in this archive. In short, the plot is the following: the main character Raimunda travels with her sister Soledad and her daughter Paula from Madrid to the village where she and her sister grew up. As they stay there, Raimunda's and Soledad's senile aunt tells them that their dead mother, Irene, is alive and is taking care of her. A day after their return to Madrid, Raimunda comes home after her work only to see her daughter waiting for her near the bus stop in complete distraught. They walk home together, and Paula tells Raimunda that she killed her father Paco out of self-protection, as he tried to rape her while being drunk. As Raimunda starts hiding the dead body and cleaning the apartment from blood, Soledad calls her and informs her that their aunt has died. As Raimunda takes care of her husband's dead body, Soledad travels to the funeral alone, and once she returns to Madrid, she finds her mother hiding in the trunk of her car. Soledad, thinking that her mother is a ghost, takes her to the apartment. In a few days, Raimunda notices that something is wrong in Soledad's apartment and finds her mother. She later finds out that her mother faked her death because she was responsible for the fire that killed Raimunda's father and his mistress. As the bodies were burned, villagers could not identify the mistress and thought that the dead people were Irene and her husband. Irene tells Raimunda that after the incident, she had to hide and disclose herself as a ghost who took care of her sister. She points out that she is thankful that superstitions still exist in the village, which did not make her occasional appearance unusual.

As Volver is very complex in its plot, it is challenging to summarize it more concisely. The themes touched in the film are sexual abuse, superstition, and the most critical — female resilience. The whole plot mostly surrounds Raimunda's journey to clean after her daughter's unintentional murder. As the story goes on, the viewers can see how certain secrets are uncovered (Ramindua was raped by her father, and Paula is both her daughter and sister) and how characters deal with them. What I like the most about this movie is how absurd yet how real it is.

The movie's name, which translates to English as the 'return,' has deep meaning. First of all, it is about the return of a mother who was believed to be dead and by her daughters. I find this particular aspect of the movie very appealing because it is very calming to see the daughter reunite with her mother after believing she was dead for so long. In addition, the film is also about the return of old problems and the return of past life. In terms of old problems, each character has to face the consequences of issues that happened to them in the past. Raimunda has to live with the fact that her father raped her, and her daughter is aware of it, and her mother Irene has to live with the guilt of killing her husband and his mistress. However, I still think that the movie has a more or less cheerful ending as the characters' lives go back to normal after facing the truth.

I watched Volver when I was in tenth grade learning Spanish. Of course, back then, I could not understand anything properly, so I had to rewatch it multiple times in either Russian or in English. Even though translations usually affect people's understanding of the plot and main events, I still think I managed to receive something from this movie that somehow shaped my understanding of life. The female journey, shown throughout the plot, sheds light on issues that I otherwise would not see or experience in life. As I am a male, I would never understand what life is after sexual harassment. Even though this problem is not the sole theme in the movie, it is still vital. Nevertheless, Pedro Almodovar managed to show all of the complex female issues with a stunning setting and very sophisticated shots, which only encouraged the spectators to get the most from the film. Overall, watching Volver countless times in my teenage years taught me the importance of resilience and living with the consequences of past actions. The film's ending scene shows Irene going to her husband's mistress' daughter's house to take care of her as she is diagnosed with cancer. She discloses herself as a ghost and starts living alongside her to repay for her past actions. This ability of characters to go back on track and recover from difficulties only shows how strong all of them are. That is what I learned from Volver, and I believe it is one of the essential qualities in life: to be resilient. I have always struggled with recovering from difficulties; every time I'd come across a problem, I would instantly give up. Of course, my problems cannot even come closer to those shown in Volver, but they still could destroy me. However, seeing how solid female resilience is in a perfectly shot movie can be very effective. Even though I still struggle with it, I am still working on being resilient, and I think that as time goes on, I am succeeding with it.

To conclude, of course, there would probably be another way of me learning the lessons that I learned from the movie. However, I think that the ideal attribute of cinema is that it accelerates the process. It might be a very subjective experience, but Volver indeed left a significant mark on my life, and I will probably rewatch it many times in years to come.