Spain, 2006
Directed by Pedro Almodóvar
With Penélope Cruz (Raimunda), Yohana Cobo (Paula), Lola Dueñas (Sole), Carmen Maura (Irene), Blanca Portillo (Agustina), Chus Lampreave (Aunt Paula), Antonio de la Torre (Paco)

Volver is Spanish for to come back. In this case, the characters, in particular the female lead, come back to their roots and to deal at long last with a painful past. The first scene, featuring also the film’s titles, makes the point clear: two sisters, Raimunda and Sole (short for Soledad), with Raimunda’s daughter Paula tagging along, clean their family’s tomb in their native village’s cemetery, complying with an old custom that demands the survivors take care of their dead relatives’ tombs at regular times, as painstakingly and seriously as they would tend to a house. The bond with the origins and the presence of death and sorrow are asserted as the overriding topics of the narrative to come.
The colorful and masterful painter of the Movida in Madrid and modern Spain has decided for once to neglect towns and to pay attention to the world of his childhood, the religious, conservative, and close-knit countryside, which is still in 2006 casting a long shadow on the Spanish mindset, since rural exodus, urban development, and economic modernization have been fresh developments, occurring more lately in Spain (and Portugal too) than in many other parts of Europe. It is an unexpected move that Pedro Almodóvar handles with the same ironic humor and the same gifted skill for observing people and details as before. The clichés associated with village mentality are cleverly used to tell the story of a family reunion as unexpected as deeply needed. The superstitions and God-fearing ideas of the natives and their sprawling, old houses, with their huge patios and long corridors, enable the convoluted screenplay to play with ghosts and surprises, family secrets and family tragedies.
The characters broadly belong to the working-class and the elderly; Paula is the only teenager making a significant contribution to the narrative, while the sister of Agustina, the best friend of Raimunda and Sole in the village, who looks after their aunt Paula, is the only successful person (though the television programs she produces are scathingly slammed by Almodóvar). Men are just extras – the only guy who could have played a big part, Raimunda’s husband Paco, is quickly dismissed as a non-entity and done away by Paula as he tries to rape her less than a quarter of an hour after the titles. This film, like others by the Spanish filmmaker, is above all a women’s story told through the actions and emotions of the women. There are of various sorts (from typical Madrid housewives to a foreign-born prostitute) but, by the way, truly born women; for once, there are no references to LGBT identities and problems, no gender-bending twists, and no social provocation in an Almodóvar film (interestingly the only provocation the characters can think of, the fact that Agustina’s mother used to be a hippy, makes a TV audience laugh, as if it was the butt of an old joke).
Death and tragedy have often been present in Almodóvar’s flicks; in this case they are the essential companions of Raimunda’s narrative arc. The first images cast her as a stickler for traditions, an active and determined personality, an ever-worried temperament anxious about her aunt’s health, Agustina’s well-being and her daughter’s manners. Paco’s killing bolsters the view she is hard-nosed and gritty, not so easily unnerved but definitely hell-bent on sparing Paula more troubles but the audience can wonder where this story can lead from there. Not very far in the life of Raimunda, though it offers some comic situations: it is something of a red herring as the narrative veers again off course with another death, from natural causes this time.
The aftermath of the passing of Aunt Paula is handled by Agustina and Sole who must grapple with seemingly preternatural events, especially the appearance of Irene, Sole and Raimunda’s mother, who have been burned down along with the father in a forest fire a few years ago. It seems that the rest of the film is going to develop around a bizarrely well alive and kicking ghost; but it is eventually disclosed that Irene does not come back from the dead but from a hideaway.
Irene is actually compelled to go into hiding again as Sole, who is hosting her, somehow believing she is a ghost, fears Raimunda can meet Irene; but Agustina’ quest for her mother, who disappeared at the same time as the horrible forest fire, trumps this childish cat and mouse game, leading to both telling the truth about this tragedy from the recent past and the reconciliation between Irene and Raimunda. For Raimunda does have a chink in her armor, a bitter secret, and a pent-up rage undermining her self-confidence; and the beauty of this loony walk with real and surreal death and daily life is to show a woman coming to terms with her misfortunes and failings even as she needs stronger support to carry on with her life. The long chat between mother and daughter on a bench by the night is a climax of basic, bluntly expressed emotions that fit the extravaganza and directness ruling the melodrama genre Almodóvar likes to play with unashamedly.
The reconciliation is followed by another trip back to the village, this time to help Agustina dying peacefully, giving the film a delicate and moving conclusion highlighting the feeling of solidarity and the spirit of forgiveness stirring now the characters. These elements were already underpinning the 1999 film “Todo sobre mi madre – All About My Mother”, centered on a mother mourning her son and shot just after the death of Almodóvar’s mother. In “Volver”, the emphasis is clearly on the awkward relationship between mother and daughter and deepens the director’s analysis of women’s emotional defenses and fragility, with the father as a plainly devious and dangerous figure, doing unspeakable harm that the victims will struggle to face up. Violence is a spontaneous, obvious response (both for Irene and Paula), but the film examines the possibility to articulate rage in more enlightening way, that is learning to empathize so as to find comfort and support. Raimunda and Irene in this regard prove successful; for them, to come back has meant to come together and moving back to the roots and the past actually heralds a time when they can move on and forward.