Volver – Return to Spain

Volver, La Mancha, Spain – A film from Almodóvar

Volver (pronounced something like bol-BARE) stars Penelope Cruz as a woman dealt a harsh hand in life. Following a teenage pregnancy, both her parents were killed in a fire and she’s ended up married to a crazy, lecherous pig. And that’s just the start.

We meet Raimunda (Cruz) with her sister, Sole, and daughter, Paula, as they clean gravestones – a tradition that apparently even the living perform on their own future burial spots.

Within a few days, her great-aunt dies, her sister sees ghosts, her husband molests her daughter, who then kills him in self-defence. As her world unravels, Raimunda somehow manages to hold it all together in a remarkably engaging and entertaining way.
Volver is a little bizarre – but it just about clings to reality. It’s full of vibrant colours and characters and explores loyalty, determination and relationships: mothers, sisters, daughters, friends and, er, ghosts.

Volver as a Guide to La Mancha, Spain.

Pedro Almodóvar, one of Spain’s greatest directors, travels back to his homeland of La Mancha with this film. Volver contrasts the city life of Madrid against the more conservative countryside. It’s great for hearing traditional music and the rhythm of Castilian Spanish, as well as for gazing at the tiled walls and entrance halls of great Spanish houses.

As Almodóvar said, “Volver is a tribute to the social rites practiced by the people of my village with regard to death and the dead.”

“Volver is a tribute to the social rites practiced by the people of my village with regard to death and the dead.”

Intrigued, I asked my Spanish friends about preparing your own grave.

Luis, from Seville, shrugged. “Exaggerated, but basically true.”