Essay. Almodóvar.

"His films are not so much about sexual orientation as they are about purposeful sexual disorientation." As Volver and the Viva Pedro! series roll out across the land, Michael Guillén tracks the ways in which Pedro Almodóvar "has fetishized the gendered body and glamorized gender variance, all in the name of Spain."

Related: "Count me in the minority, but it wasn't until Volver that I really began taking Pedro Almodóvar seriously as an artist," writes Jeff Reichert at indieWIRE. "[T]he central paradox of Volver is this: how a film so wholly ornate and unlikely ('neoclassical' seems somehow apropos) ends up the director's most vibrantly immediate work. This immediacy is due in no small part to another artist I'd never really taken seriously enough: Penélope Cruz. Her Raimunda is a wholly inhabited creation; comparisons to Sophia Loren and the ladies of classic Italian paisan cinema, have been frequent, and are apt, as there hasn't been such a full-blooded woman to grace screens in quite some time."

"Drawing on influences ranging from Latin American telenovelas to classic Hollywood weepies and on an iconography of female endurance that includes Anna Magnani and Joan Crawford, Mr Almodóvar has made yet another picture that moves beyond camp into a realm of wise, luxuriant humanism," writes AO Scott in the New York Times.

"If I had to explain the themes in general terms, I'd say they concern the sin of not seeing what's before your eyes," writes Stuart Klawans in the Nation. "Volver is about invisibility as a just punishment for this sin; about the false visibility, or self-exposure, promoted by a degraded form of show business; and about the revelations made possible, by contrast, through a true performance, which can be public and personal at the same time. Most of all, though, Volver is an exciting crime story, comedy and tear-jerker about the ways these themes may loop back through generations of women. Which just goes to show you: To explain Volver in general is to explain nothing at all."

Rob Nelson in the Voice: "Channeling Hitchcock even in this, the slightest work of his 16-film career, Almodóvar isn't what he used to be (who is?), but he's a master of the medium nevertheless, deploying color and light and shadow not merely to express emotions but to tap into ours, directing the blood flow of the audience as much as he directs the movie."

Scott Foundas finds Volver "the slightest thing he's done in years, impeccably crafted of course - with lush, Sirkian compositions and the kind of intensely primal hues that make most other movies seem colorphobic - yet ultimately something of a tiny amuse bouche following the full-course meals that were Bad Education, All About My Mother and Talk to Her." And so, the LA Weekly sweeps you right along to Ella Taylor's conversation with Cruz.

"[C]oming off of three masterpieces in a row... Volver is not quite on their level - it's merely very, very good - which may make it sound like a disappointment. Few directors indeed ever find themselves in this pickle," writes Andy Klein in the LA CityBeat.

Jennifer Merin talks with Almodóvar for the New York Press.

Online listening tip. The Reeler talks with Almodóvar and Cruz.

Earlier: Cannes reviews and many more.

Posted by dwhudson at November 3, 2006 1:38 PM