Pedro Almodovar is one of the greatest living film directors, the rightful heir to Hitchcock’s throne with his mix of psychosexual driven dramas and an innovative storyteller who delivers uniquely crafted narratives. When Hulu notified me that his films were going to expire and be removed on June 20, 2017, I decided to watch all his films, including the ones that I already saw. This review is the fourth in a summer series that reflect on his films and contains spoilers.
I first saw All About My Mother when it appeared in theaters. The memory of the images lasted longer than the actual story so rewatching it over seventeen years later was almost like seeing it for the first time. It was only after the second viewing that I discovered that before seeing All About My Mother, I should have seen The Flower of My Secret, which provides fundamental plot elements to this movie as Law of Desire does to numerous subsequent Almodovar films. Of all his films, it is hardest to analyze this film because I enjoy it so much. With Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown as his first, All About My Mother is probably his second most conventionally approachable film.
All About My Mother shares many elements with Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown-women communing without the hysteria. Instead of Ivan, we have Lola, a transgender woman, who is being sought after by many of the characters in the film and leaves a wake of disaster in her path. There is an idea of sons, some secret and some known, as the only surviving mementoes of a broken heart/relationship, and mothers raise the children. It continues the theme of largely physically or psychologically absent fathers who are unable to connect with their children. Unlike Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, All About My Mother has overtly controversial elements: a lesbian couple, illegal drug use, a transgender sex worker, a glaring virgin whore dynamic.
All About My Mother is about an actor/nurse/mother with many secrets: a secret past relationship, a secret son, a secret career. Tragedy strikes, and like a dam breaking, she decides to reveal all of them while becoming a repository of secrets for others. There is the implicit idea that if she can make amends for her original sin of omission, maybe she can begin again. If one is frank, she is the queen of omission or lying, but instead of this being a point of division, it draws her closer to others, mostly women. Lying and acting are sisters in art and intention and vehicles for empathy through imagination. The nurse functions as Almodovar’s priest for the other characters. This film features every type of woman: straight, lesbian, transgender, cis. There are numerous types of mothers: people who had to give birth to themselves, biological mothers, fictional mothers (Stella), adopted mothers, professional mothers (nurses), mothers without children.
Most of Almodovar’s films deal with the madness caused by romantic or sexual love, which appears in All About My Mother with the lesbian couple and the nun’s brief dalliance with Lola. This film also addresses the temporary madness of death caused by one’s own looming mortality (Lola stealing from a friend or having sex with someone without a condom) or the loss of a loved one (the nurse). Instead of it being reflected on screen in hysterical behavior, this madness leads to commiseration and bonhomie among the women that erases most grudges that the characters could have potentially held against the others. There are no violent confrontations after betrayal, just calm conversations and reconciliation.
All About My Mother has a fairly straightforward, linear narrative despite all the revelations. Instead of confusion between fact and fiction, there is the idea of a porous link where fiction infects reality and vice versa—maybe because the author dies or Almodovar’s most personally relatable character removes himself from the story. The nurse is in a fictional instructional skit about a mother who must donate her son’s organs. She later finds herself in that same position moments later. Her son’s favorite actor does not give him an autograph like in All About Eve, and like in All About Eve, the nurse is ready to take over a role at a moment’s notice. The nurse’s past and her son’s life end with A Streetcar Named Desire. The iconic, enormous poster of the star becomes a friend. This film is a feature-length homage to how our lives are enriched and inspired by fiction.
All About My Mother has a supporting transgender character, Agrada, played by Antonio San Juan, who may be a transgender woman according to some accounts, but she has said, “I’m not a transsexual or a transvestite. There’s a lot of confusion about me, but I am an actress and that is all there is to say about that.” She owns her own story. Unlike most media depictions of plastic surgery, Almodovar uses it as a moment of empowerment in Agrada’s monologue. She proudly details the amount of money that she spent and surgeries that she had, “Well, as I was saying, it costs a lot to be authentic, ma’am. And one can’t be stingy with these things because you are more authentic the more you resemble what you’ve dreamed of being.” Both plastic surgery and the medical profession are seen as secret allies for the LGBTQ and creative community in Law of Desire, Bad Education and this film. The film does not minimize the physical and sexual violence and harassment, economic insecurity and vulnerability faced by Agrada, but they are simply parts of her day, not defining characteristics.
Even though All About My Mother is fairly melodramatic, Almodovar gives a happy ending to the nurse by giving her a new life, which suggests that once all secrets are spilled, and people stop harming each other, the characters can have redemption. She is like Pepa in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown-once she recovers, she can move on and own her story too without continuing the vicious cycle from her first time as a mother. Unlike Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, withholding information is not seen as necessary to moving forward, but as a bad beginning. The goal of All About My Mother is the business of reconciliation with one’s past and those who transgress against us by each character moving forward with the full story.