A few hours after ‘Parallel Mothers’ is released this Friday in Spanish cinemas, Pedro Almodóvar is aware of the end of the cycle in the industry, recognizing himself by exercising “a twilight trade”, with which the most international of our directors does not He gives up talking about the Spain that he has lived through. At 72, Almodóvar addresses motherhood and historical memory through two single mothers embodied by Penelope Cruz and Milena Smit who coincide in the delivery room. And as a prologue and epilogue, the unopened graves with the dead of the Civil War. From the suite at the Madrid Ritz in which the director talks to EL CORREO, the tense and vociferous Spain that sneaks into his latest feature film, with which he opened the Venice Film Festival, it seems very far away. “It is very sad to recognize that we have regressed as a society”, laments the filmmaker.
-The figure of the mother is recurrent in your cinema, but I have never explored with such depth the maternal instinct that, according to the film, you have it or you don’t have it.
-It’s very dramatic when you don’t have it. I know friends who recognize me and live very badly, because it creates a huge guilt complex for them. In the case of the mother played by Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, not only does she have no maternal instinct, but she almost fights for the father to stay with her daughter, giving up her to dedicate herself to her own career. I treat that mother with all the respect and without judging her, but she is a character who in reality would pay a very high price in the form of guilt. I know a person with the same problem and with the same response from the father: making life impossible for him, preventing him from seeing his daughter. The characters of Penelope and Milena are two accidental single mothers, one is vocational, she conceives of being a mother, although it comes to her without having foreseen it; the other mother arose from a case that I read in the press, a kind of confusing rape after a juvenile bacchanalia, with a girl traumatized by having become pregnant. After having the girl, nature already takes care of everything, that she adores her daughter and is what matters most to her.
-In recent times we have been talking, even from the humor side, about ‘bad mothers’. It is as if motherhood is no longer taboo.
-There are very specific television cases in this regard, I prefer to call them ‘imperfect mothers’, ‘bad mother’ is a very Telecinco term … Listening to my friends, I think that the mother lives in continuous shock and when not, she feels guilty for not having been attentive enough. All the mothers who have the misfortune that something happens to their children, at any age, even when they have already become emancipated, are mothers who will wonder for life what I did wrong, I could have prevented it. I think that is part of motherhood, which is something that we do not have. Motherhood is a very mysterious feeling. It is a miracle in itself and only the woman knows it thoroughly. Now the issue of the bad mother is treated in a very sensational way because that is the way television media are. It is more to speak of imperfections than of a mother who, suddenly, has no maternal instinct. I do not judge her, she should not feel guilty.
-Have you felt the paternal instinct? Have you wanted to have children?
-When I was young, at 20 or 30 years old, not at all. I thought that bringing a child into this world … That no one deserved that. However, after the quarantine there were a few years when he felt a kind of animal need to have offspring. I’m not saying to adopt, but to have a child of my own blood. He completely contradicted me, because I don’t think that way; to be a father, consanguinity is the least of it, other elements create a family. I think he felt that intense need to be a father because of a biological issue. Later, fortunately, it passed to me.
-The film shows the sisterhood between two women, two single mothers who support each other. New forms of family.
-Totally. The family has evolved a lot in the last twenty years. Everything that came to be called alternative families seemed natural to me. For me, family is a group that protects a being that has just been born, that supplies all the needs with all the love. That is what legitimizes the family. In reality they are made up of single mothers, two fathers … It no longer has to do with a religious background, such as the Catholic family. They are vocational families, they are based on love, which is the most legitimate of all feelings. Sisterhood, the ability to support each other among women and form a family that is not biological, was already present in ‘All about my mother’. The character of Cecilia Roth took the place of the mother for that of Penelope Cruz. I have always believed in these units that arise spontaneously and in a very deep way.
Milena Smit and Penelope Cruz in ‘Parallel Mothers’.
– «I am apolitical, my job is to like everyone», says in ‘Parallel Mothers’ the character of Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, an actress who triumphs in the theater after many years. What do you think when you hear someone define themselves as apolitical?
-I think it’s right-wing. Except for very young people, who have not had time to reflect on the society in which they live. The character says it because he is right-wing, conservative. I have heard it in people of my profession, especially as a result of the Goyas of ‘No to war’. At that time we became the black beast of the Popular Party, which from power dedicated itself to revile us, to create the worst possible reputation especially a group. If it is said in another country, like France, it would be incredible. That the State itself denies and attacks the creators of its culture seems tremendous to me. They were very cruel to the cinema and the theater. I heard in some people that reaction of lukewarmness, regarding that act as brave as the delivery of the Goya, of which I feel very proud and I applaud Animalario, who wrote the script for the gala. Some believed that we had spent too much time, and that we had to work for everyone. I work for everyone, it is the viewer who chooses me making use of their freedom. I want people of all kinds of ideologies to go to see my films.
“All the rights for which we have fought and achieved in the last forty years we must take care to defend them in an active way, because they are in danger”
“Cinemas are going to end up disappearing. I feel like I’m doing twilight work, but I don’t lose hope »
– ‘Parallel mothers’ is his most political film. Have you censored yourself thinking that if you made it too political it would subtract the public?
-No. I had been looking for the story for a long time to be able to tell this topic. I started writing ‘Parallel Mothers’ ten years ago and there was already the problem of the graves, which has consciously ended up as a prologue and epilogue to the film. The boys who appear in the excavation belong to an NGO that is dedicated to this. They thanked me for giving visibility to an issue that when we shot the movie didn’t make as much of the headlines. Last July, the government created the Democratic Memory Law and the state is already in charge of the excavations.
-We live in a time in which we talk again about issues that we assumed were overcome: abortion, homophobia with attacks on the LGTBI collective …
-Absolutely. What happened a few weeks ago with the neo-Nazi group that demonstrated in Chueca shouting AIDS, fagots, get out of here … That was inconceivable in the 80s and 90s. It would never have happened. We have regressed as a society, it is sad to admit it. All the rights for which we have fought and achieved in the last forty years we must take care to defend them in an active way, because they are in danger. There has never been so much homophobic hate crime. I am shocked.
-Social networks do not help.
-The networks help all this to be organized, through the networks hatred can be organized from anonymity. It is a wicked use.
Pedro Almodóvar with the actors of ‘Parallel Mothers’. /
-What a paradox: platforms have finally created an industry in Spanish cinema, but they are going to destroy theaters.
-It is a real contradiction, indeed. There is a real industry that we have never had thanks to platforms, which are not the most interested in the cinematic experience in a room. Now there are even collective agreements, which before was not even talked about. But the interests of the platforms are different, even in relation to the movies. The subscriber feels the desperate need to immediately see everything that is advertised, and that causes us to change models, if we have not already changed. That takes away vitality and viewers from cinemas. In not long time, I think theaters are going to end up disappearing. We will be left with four rooms in each big city, which will be like museums to which people interested in a certain author will go. The rest of the films will be seen by the families in their living room. It seems like a huge loss to me. I do not know if it is reversible or not, I want to believe that some young person will discover what it is to see ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ on a big screen or ‘Dune’ itself and the theaters will reopen. The situation right now is terrifying. I release a movie in three days and I’m terrified. The collection has fallen between 70 and 80%. In other countries less, but in Spain in the current post-pandemic era, people absolutely prefer terraces. And the movies, at home, which are cheaper because the whole family can see them. I feel like I’m doing twilight work, but I don’t lose hope.
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