all about my mother, mother and son

two films exploring the mother and son relationship could not have been more different.. while one revels in minimalist expressionism the other could not be more over the top.

the first alexandr sukorov’s ‘mother and son’ removed all semblance of story to replace it with painterly distorted images centered around a son nursing his dying mother in a small house in the middle of a wild landscape.. the powerful images and soundscape was all that was offered to us.. very arty, very tough to watch.. the movie is still with
me though.. these russians.

the other one was pedro almodovar’s ‘all about my mother’.. if there ever was a more convoluted story.. a pregnant hiv-positive nun, a transgendered prostitute, a famous theater star who is a closet lesbian, her lesbian lover high on crack, a man with large breasts named Lola, a woman who loses her son and decides to go and confront her former husband who is now a woman.. a fantastic film that lies in the intersection of sex and gender, ‘all about eve’ and ‘a streetcar named desire’ - pop-literate, hilarious, extremely sad - I never thought post-modernism would be so moving.

a movie dedicated.. “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.”

hail almodovar and his mother for having him.