All About My Mother [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Director: Pedro Almodóvar Pedro Almodóvar

Overview

Contrary to its title, the film is not about a mother, but about maternity or even paternity. Manuela (Cecilia Roth), a thirty-something nurse and single mother, lives alone with her son Esteban (Eloy Azorin), a Truman Capote fan writing a story about his mother for a competition. After watching A Streetcar Named Desire in a theatre, Esteban is hit by a car as he runs after the actress Huma Rojo (Marisa Paredes), who plays Blanche Dubois in the play, and dies in the arms of his mother. Manuela begins to search for Esteban's father (Toni Canto), who has now become a transvestite called Lola, La Pionera. Between Madrid and Barcelona, she meets several people, mostly women or transsexuals. Be they mothers, prostitutes, or nuns, women are the leading force behind the melodramas of Pedro Almodovar and his provocative questioning of social conventions. This film is dedicated to three women of the silver screen -- Bette Davis, Gena Rowlands, and Romy Schneider -- who interpreted widowhood and hopelessness on screen in All About Eve (1950), Opening Night (1977), and L'Important, c'est d'aimer (1975). Almodovar is again trying to construct a family with this film, except that what he proposes is far from the traditional concept of family. His 'family' is comprised of women; from Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, which ends with pregnancy, he has come full circle. While proposing a new model of family, Almodovar is at the same time defending tolerance. Pedro Almodovar was named Best Director at the 52nd Cannes Film Festival in 1999, where the film was both widely acclaimed and expected to win one of the main film awards.

Product Details

Release Date:	01/28/2020
UPC:	0715515240611
Original Release:	1999
Rating:	R
Source:	Criterion Collection
Region Code:	A
Presentation:	[Wide Screen]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround]
Language:	English
Time:	1:41:00
Sales rank:	8,760

Special Features

Fifty-two-minute documentary from 2012 on the making of the film, featuring interviews with Pedro Almodóvar; Agustin Almodóvar; actors Penélope Cruz, Marisa Parades, Cecilia Roth, and Antonia San Juan; production manager Esther Garcia; and author Didier Eribon Television program from 1999 featuring Pedro Almodóvar and his mother, Francisca Caballero, along with Cruz, Paredes, Roth, and San Juan Forty-eight-minute post-screening Q&A in Madrid from 2019, featuring Pedro Almodóvar, Agustin Almodóvar, and Paredes New English subtitle translation

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Cecilia Roth	Manuela
Marisa Paredes	Huma Rojo
Candela Peña	Nina
Antonia San Juan	Agrado
Penélope Cruz	Hermana Rosa
Rosa Maria Sardà	Madre de Rosa
Fernando Fernán Gómez	Padre de Rosa
Toni Cantó	Lola
Eloy Azorín	Esteban
Carlos Lozano	Mario
Manuel Morón	Actor
José Luis Torrijo	Actor
Juan José Otegui	Actor
Malena Gutiérrez	Actor
Carmen Fortuny	Actor,Carmen
Patxi Freytez	Actor
Juan Marquez	Actor
Michel Ruben	Actor
Daniel Lanchas	Actor
Rosa Manaut	Actor
Paz Sufrategui	Actor
Lola García	Actor,Actor
Lluis Pascual	Actor
Rosa María Sardá	Actor
Fernando Guillén Cuervo	Actor,Manuela's boss
Fernando Guillén	Doctor en 'Un tranvía llamado Deseo'
Carmen Balagué	Actor
Yael Barnatán	Yael
Carlos García Cambero	Heart Recipient
Inma Subirà	Actor
Anne Baxter	Eve
Candela Pena	Actor
Rosa Maria Sarda	Actor
Eloy Azorin	Actor
Toni Canto	Actor
Alberto Iglesias	Composer

Technical Credits

Pedro Almodóvar

Pedro Almodóvar	Director,Producer,Executive Producer,Screenwriter
Sara Bilbatua	Casting
Antonio Lemos	Stunts
Miguel Rejas	Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

One of the most innovative directors to emerge during the 1980s, Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar is at the top of his game with All About My Mother, winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. With his customary panache, Almodóvar employs colorful characters and absurdist comedy to brighten a tragic story. Following the accidental death of her teenage son, hospital worker Manuela (Cecilia Roth) reads the boy's diary and learns of his unfulfilled desire to meet the father he never knew. This knowledge spurs Manuela to find her former lover, a quest that brings the grief-stricken mother in contact with her son's favorite actress (Marisa Parides), a beautiful, pregnant nun (Penelope Cruz), and an old acquaintance who's become a drag queen (Antonio San Juan). Almodóvar limns these troubled but sympathetic characters in rich detail and elicits sterling performances from a talented cast. In equal measures compassionate and campy, All About My Mother lovingly acknowledges society's oddballs and outcasts.

Barnes & Noble - Ed Hulse

Putting his distinctive spin on the women's picture, renowned Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar affectionately salutes the female spirit and alternative families in All About My Mother. Combining serious melodrama with Almodóvar's signature flair for splashy color and flamboyant, theatrical characters, Manuela's journey to Barcelona to find her dead son's father and assuage her grief balances humor, pathos, and profound insight into love of all kinds -- especially maternal. The unexpected fortitude and empathy she discovers, with the help of a transsexual, a stage diva, and a pregnant nun, turn All About My Mother into a joyful portrait of feminine complexity (complete with La Agrado's hilariously candid monologue about what it took to make her a "real" woman). Among the outstanding cast of actresses in a film dedicated to actresses, Cecilia Roth glows as Manuela, revealing the depths of pain in her face even as she carves out a new life. Marisa Paredes manages to be both imperious and touchingly vulnerable as theater star Huma. Hailed as Almodóvar's most mature and heartfelt work, All About My Mother earned the Best Director prize at Cannes, numerous critics' awards, and a richly deserved Oscar for Best Foreign Film.

All Movie Guide - Lucia Bozzola