I was at the Secretary of State renewing my driver's license. I sat with a bunch of other folks with my number, counting the minutes, ten people in front of me. Above me was a sign that read 'Volver.'
I thought, how strange that they would be advertising Almodovar at the Secretary of State. Fool I am. It wasn't long to figure out that volver means return, as in you had some additional paperwork you needed or you needed to get your license plate number and so they gave you a return slip so you didn't have to stand in line twice.
Volver presumes to be a zombie movie oddly enough, as only Almadovar could do it. I sat at the SOS and tried to recall the story. Murder, the Deus Ex Machina of the undead, the plight of women in Spain, the poor cancer woman who is nothing but heart. All great Almadovar themes. I'd like to say it was a ghost story, but this woman was back in the flesh, interactive. What is a zombie after all but animate flesh?
I waited my turn and thought about my number and what it would be like to have a return slip instead, just gliding up to the counter whenever I chose. There was an old man there who wore a fedora and played at not hearing the numbers, as if he might trick someone into giving him their number. He was quite amusing, though I might have been the only one who got the joke of it.
His hair was trimmed poorly. There were patches of short stubble at the back of his head. He had done it himself. He was all alone.
In an Almadovar film, we are thrust into the emotional depths of his characters' lives at once. They all confess everything to each other. Everything is open and uninhibited. People do very strange things as if they were perfectly normal and justified. They make no excuses for who they are.
They swim in each other's pathos, pure duende. When a woman sings in an Almadovar film, it is the story. It is not Bollywood. The movie rises out of the song, is the setting for that jewel. Here Penelope Cruz gets to try her chops. What a privledge it must have been to work with him.