In watching Pedro Almodovar’s All About My Mother, I was struck by the
ending dedication, which states:
To all actresses who have played
actresses, to all women who act, to men who act and become women, to all the
people who want to be mothers… to my mother.
Throughout the film, there is an emphasis on the role of
acting. By virtue of it being a movie, the characters intrinsically “act,”
however men act as women, women act as mothers, and each of the parts assume a
role that is either thrust upon them or chosen. I found that the stress placed
upon the idea of acting enlightened the viewer to the larger blurring of
established roles throughout society.
Femininity
and motherhood play a large part in All
About My Mother, as we see Manuela experience the loss of her son and
return to Barcelona to confront the life she had run from 18 years prior. After
the death of her biological child, Manuela continues to embrace a maternal role,
becoming a surrogate parent to a variety of women. We first see her at “The
Field,” helping La Agrado and, later she becomes a caregiver to both Huma Rojo
and Sister Rosa. Blurring the line between motherhood and friendship, Manuela
takes these dependents under her wing and becomes a large part of their lives.
Manuela takes on the role of a caregiver, and acts as a mother to the characters
throughout the film, ultimately defining her role as a human being.
More
distinctly, the lines between genders are blurred throughout the movie through
the variety of transgendered characters.
In La Agrado’s candid speech, she says that, “you are more authentic the
more you resemble what you’ve dreamed of being,” which reinforces the idea that
in acting a part the characters throughout the film are actually being truer to
themselves. In this way, we see that the role of acting is not to obscure the
truth, but rather to illuminate it. I found that this reinforced the idea that
one can therefore author their own story, rather than rely on the predisposed
role they are born into. This juxtaposition of performance and reality that
exists throughout the film allows for the viewer to question all traditional
and accepted societal roles.
Lauren's ideas upon the acting within the film are very interesting. Acting plays a huge role within the film, and as Lauren describes, acting enlightens the ideas of roles in society becoming indistinct. Several of the roles played by the characters within the film are mixed and are against social standards. It seems that acting can be part of becoming what "[one has] dreamed of being." Many of the characters have acted upon their life and have become what they have desired. Such as the men, who have chosen to become women or women, who have not been mothers, play motherly roles, they have all acted upon their life to fulfill their dreams. These contradictions within the film provide a better analysis upon the conventions of society, which should not define the individuals.
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