Almodovars All About My Mother Analysis Film Studies Essay

Almodovars All About My Mother Analysis Film Studies Essay Pedro Almodovar is an auteur in Spanish national and art cinema. His films always explore the issues such as sexuality, transgender and women’s life where friends and lovers replace the parents and family. In a post-feminism point of view, he disestablished the feminism but highlights the positions of both female characters and actress. His works are more targeted to women and give female audience a resonance on motion. All About My Mother is a film Almodovar made in 1999. It stills an impressive work to discover the deep feeling of women when suffering from the dead of son and lover. The storyline describe a single mother Manuela witness his son die in a car accident when he run to ask for an autograph. And then she wants to find the father in Barcelona. In Barcelona, she meets her transgender friends, the lesbian couple and a young nun Rosa. The whole film interspersed with these several women’s interesting and dumbfounding stories. Some of them encounter the issues of transsexual or AIDS which make their characteristics more rounded. This title not only refers to Manuela but also point to women who were and would be mother, as well the actress. The opening scene is a smoothly and masterful camera movement in hospital. It follows the plastic infusion tube, with the blurred background and a sad music to heighten the atmosphere. The cast list in a bloody color fade in and out like the blood flowing. Without saying any word, just use a montage skill to show there is a patient or accident. Almodovar are the master of using misn-en-scene. The next scenes are still using camera movement show the medical machine. After the still of ECG, Manuela suffers the pain from death and faces other’s organ donation which she need to solve later (her son’s organ donation). Almodovar emphasises not only the mise-en-scene, but also the collocation of color. I think it is the aesthetics of Almdovar. The scene that Manuela cooking in the kitchen, the bl ue cupboard and the red cloth and tomato join together make a strong Almodovar style. Gathering blue and red maybe is a habitual technique of Almodovar. The son’s clothe is also blue and sit together with his mother’s red. In the bedroom of Esteban, this style gets more highlights. The red wall assembled with the blue bed and chair. I can see red everywhere for instance later Huma’s hair and cloth as well. The film is filled with references. At the beginning, Manuela and her son sit on sofa and watch the old Hollywood film All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950, USA). That movie talking about the actress named Eve, the same way was used to reflect the story in All About My Mother, it talk about mothers and women who have relationship with acting. In All About Eve, they also mention the fans and acting issues. When watching the film, the son Esteban finds that the Spanish television station always changes the title of the movies and use dub instead of original sound track which are references from the society. In this scene, Esteban writing on his notebook has a brilliant camera angle. The camera use both the POV of Esteban and the notebook, we can see Esteban writing ‘Todo sobre mi madre’ (original title in Spanish) from his hand moving. Then the title of this film appeared very smoothly. After watching the film, Manuela shares the only half photo she took when she was a actress. The camera follows the cracks and down while shows Esteban looking at the picture and later he will mention that the other half would be his ‘father’.