Todo sobre mi madre

En principio, me gustan las películas de Almodóvar, pero aquí no conecté con el mago español. La historia no me atrapó, no entendí lo que el autor quería decir y por qué algunos personajes se comportaban de esa manera, además, algunos de ellos eran realmente desagradables. El único rayo de luz fue, como siempre, Penélope Cruz y su personaje logró capturar mi corazón. (23.07.2017)

Theatrically twisted, unfettered melodramatic and precipitously colorful... Almodóvar talking about life being like playing a role, a mother, a woman, a man – an intelligent and consistent unit with characteristically supple personal stamp (how much the music of Albert Iglesias means to a Spaniard!). A queer film, but one that does not close itself off to the majority whatsoever. Personally, I don’t know what to think about the comedic stylization in certain parts. It seems to me that out of the hypersensitivity of maternal vicissitudes, Almodóvar dipped into Broken Embraces. His self-reflexive mask of an intellectual is probably a tiny bit closer to me than the pastel softness All About My Mother. (08.02.2010)

Almodóvar has already received 4 stars from me in the past, and it would be interesting to compare these titles with the film All About My Mother, during which I started to have enough of Almodóvar and his film style. Filmmaking is undoubtedly in his blood, but what can you do when his film contains a lot of melodramatic twists, like from a cheap Latin American soap opera? It is theatrical, and the characters and their actions are as if from another planet. I am not such a puritan that I mind transvestites, homosexuals, and prostitutes, but other characters in Almodóvar's world hardly ever get in. Moreover, how he builds their relationships is very forced. Two women who have never seen each other before share very intimate and crucial information at their first meeting, which a person would probably prefer to keep secret and only confide in a very close and trustworthy person. I can't help it, but as cultured as Almodóvar is in revealing his sexual desires compared to, let's say, Pasolini, his desires and his entire world exhaust me, so I'm done with it. Overall impression: 45%. (24.01.2015)

Pedro Almodóvar doesn't become a director I love this time around either, but thanks to the Prague City theaters' production, I'm somewhat more comfortable with the Oscar-winning phenomenon All About My Mother. It really helped me to see both Penélope Cruz and Evellyn Pacoláková in the same role, because only in this way could Hermana Rosa become a real character in my eyes and not just a variation of a familiar face. And I could go on. All About Eve is better in the theatrical version, but the transvestite Agrado is obviously better in the film, because what Vladimir Marek does on the stage is a disaster. All in all, I'll try a few more things from the Almodóvar/Cruz collection, but I think we're done. His world exists on the completely opposite side of cinema from the one in which I exist. On paper, the story must have looked great - all the coincidences, transvestites, intersections with art, and cheeky one-liners - but in its final form, it's just about improbable situations, cinematic coincidences, and glycerine tears. (19.02.2015)

Almodóvar this time missed the complexities of the human soul and for quite a while, it bothered me that besides the main character, I couldn't find even a little ordinary character with whom the viewer could identify. In the flood of prostitutes, transsexuals, or women with insurmountable prejudices, I got lost in the first hour and was bored heavily. That's why I was even more surprised by the final catharsis, which has a significant power and saves what can be saved. However, as a whole, it simply doesn't harmonize at all, no matter how much I would have wished for the opposite due to the popularity of the film. (09.02.2007)