Volver

Written & Directed by Pedro Almodóvar

Already designated as Spain’s official selection for Oscar consideration, Pedro Almodóvar‘s Volver is this year’s most haunting and inspiring film about women.

In it, mothers and daughters, sisters and aunts, friends and neighbors gradually unveil all the mysterious secrets of their pasts and passionately embrace each other and the future. Of the inventively complex and highly entertaining plot, no more need be revealed—except that Almodóvar’s characters are, as always, brilliantly nuanced and astonishingly truthful; the places he creates begin to feel like home, even if you’ve never been there.

“Volver, meaning to come back, is a title with many meanings. First, we shot in La Mancha, the place where I was born and lived my first eight years—so I’m coming back to my roots. I was very aware of this while we were shooting, and I encountered my mother—not physically, but I strongly felt her presence,” explains Almodóvar. “Then, I returned to working with two important actresses in my life: Carmen Maura—who’d been my artistic soul mate—for the first time in 18 years and Penélope Cruz—whose beauty, strength and vulnerability obsess me—for the first time in seven years.

“Volver is also the title of the song Penélope sings—a song that’s so important for her character and for the meaning of the film. And it also indicates the passage of time and the return of the mother who, in a way, comes from the beyond.”

MERIN: We’re lucky: Eight Almodóvar films have returned to New York in a retrospective of your work. Is there a through line from one film to the next that perhaps reflects your personal evolution?

ALMODOVAR: Yes, I think so. But it comes unconsciously. I don’t consciously select my stories—they select me. Then I fill them with my own experiences—and, truly, as you say, my experiences—as they change during my life—also change my films. But one important thing that doesn’t change is I never judge my characters. I really give them everything they need and complete liberty to make choices they want in their lives. I look after them with compassion, love and care—and that’s the life they breathe within my films. Even if they commit crimes that are awful—murder or anything—the challenge for me as a writer is to explain them as human beings being in their humanity. This is also my way of living.

You’re absolutely right in what you said about my work in relation to myself. But it’s difficult to talk about that. I feel like sighing, because really it’s like talking about myself in a way I’m not used to.

Do you dream your characters?

I dream a lot, but not exactly what’s happening with the characters. It’s mysterious, the way they appear and what happens to them. My work is similar to the work of a detective: When you’ve created a situation for a character, you have to ask how did this character get there, why and how’s he going to get out of it—and this becomes the job of a detective. It’s a weird way of working because answers come little by little. The story develops as almost a process of sedimentation: A series of layers slowly progresses within me as I write the story, and they add up.

You transform audiences into detectives, as well, by giving us visual cues. Each shot presents information we receive almost subconsciously, and each time we see the film, we understand more.

It all comes from where I put the camera, what I focus on, the colors I choose. Absolutely. You have to give clues you want audiences to know. And on my set, there’s a lot of waiting while we decide what color we want the wall to be—you have to be specific. I often work by instinct—like a painter would—making decisions based on intuition,  not necessarily intellectual decisions. But environmental colors should express a character’s internal being, circumstances and mood.

I test a lot. I think certain colors will work and I do it that way—and need to change it. Mostly, place determines coloration. In Volver, for example, there’s a lot of black and white—colors I don’t normally include in my palette. That was precisely determined by place, by the austerity and severe conservatism of La Mancha. 

You also use music—in addition to the title song—as a narrative element, to advance the plot and elicit emotions …

For me, music is the best element of narration. In my movies, it takes a very active part in the story, giving information about what’s happening. It’s dynamic. If the music stops, the story stops. But it must be used properly.

Fortunately, I always work with a wonderful composer, Alberto Iglesias. I can’t live without him. Without him, my movies would be very different. He knows everything about the script, and he knows what I want for it. So, working with him is the same as working with actors: entirely collaborative. I’m as lucky with him as Fellini was with Nino Rota.

The music must be integrated into the story, not there to sell more CDs. Because that’s one thing I hate, when songs included at the end of the movie aren’t related to what’s happened in the movie and they’re just there to sell CDs.

Do you write all the visual and audio elements into your screenplays? Do your scripts change while you’re shooting?

I take seven or eight years to write a script, so my screenplays are ironclad. But on set, at the unique moment when actors, set décor, cameras come together for the first time—at that very moment that I’ve never lived before—sometimes I get new ideas and add things. When I write the script and while we’re rehearsing, I develop a lot of different possibilities, so I know characters by heart and can improvise at the last minute. I allow myself and the actors to be very fresh and alive. I really adapt everything to the moment we’re shooting. To shoot a movie is something completely alive, and you have to make sure it stays that way.