Yesterday was Mother's Day.
Uncle Yu wishes all mothers a happy holiday!
The word "mother" has always been given too many sacred meanings.
Selflessness, dedication, tenacity, love...
When a woman becomes a mother, life seems to go to another level.
Naturally, they are imprisoned by the world with a shell of "perfection and sacredness".
However, there is a master of cinema who insists on pulling this sacredness into the mortal world.
uses complex, distorted, and alternative emotional stories to interpret maternal love, but expresses the image of the mother most vividly.
Who can have such magic?
Let's take a look today-
All About My Mother
All About My Mother
Pedro Almodovar.
A world film master who is keen on filming strange love.
He is like a master of playing with three views.
The story in his hand violates almost all the rules of ethics, marriage, and gender from the mainstream perspective.
In "My Skin", the male protagonist who avenges the woman kidnaps the rapist and turns it into a woman.
But I fell in love with TA while getting along day and night.
In "Say It to Her", a male nurse who is deeply in love expresses his love for a comatose patient through rape.
Such a perverted behavior has won the empathy of the male protagonist.
and in the previous column, Uncle Yu talked to everyone about "Tie Me, Tie Me".
In order to get the love of the female owner, the male protagonist kidnapped, imprisoned, and beat her.
In the end, the two finally became married.
The women in Almodovar's lens are always flamboyant and flamboyant.
No matter what kind of story they go through, they can be photographed with charm.
It's hard to imagine what kind of sparks can be generated by concentrating distorted emotions and gaudy amorous feelings on a single mother.
When a blonde woman full of mature charm, dressed in red, stopped in front of a huge poster of red lips and looked into the distance.
It's also hard to guess what kind of unique story she has in her.
The woman's name is Manuela and she is a single mother.
She lives in Madrid with her son.
The relationship between mother and child is very harmonious.
I like to snuggle up at home and watch movies together.
The two also had nothing to talk about.
Mothers can play colorful jokes with their sons at will.
For Manuela, her son is also the whole of life.
Manuela works as an organ donation coordinator at a hospital.
This job is full of pain from life and death.
Unexpectedly, she herself was tricked by the same fate.
On their son's 17th birthday, mother and son went to the theater to see their favorite play, A Streetcar Named Desire.
After the performance, I waited at the entrance of the theater.
Because the son wants to ask for an autograph from his favorite actress, Red Smoke.
The pouring rain, the indifferent actors, and the vehicles that come and go together create an unexpected tragedy.
His son died in a car accident, and his heart was donated to a distant stranger.
The departure of her son was undoubtedly a fatal blow to Manuela.
What made her regret even more was that her son asked her father over and over again, but she didn't give the answer her son wanted.
The son's diary is full of thoughts of his father, which stung Manuela even more.
So she decided to go back to Barcelona to find her son's biological father and complete a belated acquaintance.
Unexpectedly, on the first day of arriving in Barcelona, I met my former friend, Ah Yue, in a dirty and lustful place.
The reunion of old friends makes Manuela's journey to find a husband for her son different.
also revealed her unknown past to the audience.
Almodóvar likes to use large chunks of bright colors in his paintings.
Colorful Spanish cities, theaters, colorful costumes......
The women who walk in such colors are also flamboyant and intense.
There are a total of four important female characters in the movie.
Manuela seems to live a step-by-step life, but before she became a mother, she lived a life of wanton style.
She has been acting in dramas since she was in school, and she and her husband also met when they starred in "A Streetcar Named Desire".
Later, the two got married at a young age.
Although the film doesn't say it explicitly, it can be seen from the photos that she knows very well about the red light district and saves by friends that Manuela is an open and enthusiastic girl.
Manuela's friend, Ah Yue, is a prostitute.
Also transgender.
Ah Yue's appearance was very unbearable, and she was violently assaulted by the mob.
But even so, her optimistic personality and witty conversation make her seem as if she lives in a world where there is no pain but joy.
Always dressed in bright colors, she is like a colorful jelly bean, happy and sweet to everyone around her.
Rosa, a kind nun.
With a delicate appearance and a wealthy family, it also has a strong heart.
Always do what you can to help others, even in war-torn areas.
Red smoke looks a little sensitive, cold and selfish.
But in fact, it is the person who can show the strongest love to the lover who has just been together for two weeks.
Four completely different but highly personal women collide to form the supreme group of this story.
There is such a scene in the movie:
At Manuela's house, four people sat around drinking together.
Some of them met for the first time, and some of them had not been in conflict for a long time.
But they all laughed without any guilt.
It's hard to imagine that the four women who are laughing are carrying a period of pain behind them.
In addition to the departure of her son, Manuela's marriage is actually not healthy.
The husband went to work in Paris after the two got married.
After two years, I became a cross-dresser with breast augmentation.
At first, Manuela accepted such a husband.
But the husband is a and mean double standard.
Unable to stand it, she ended up leaving Barcelona with a pregnancy.
Unexpectedly, when she came back to find her husband for her son, he had already stolen all of Ah Yue's money and ran away.
This also led to Ah Yue being reduced to a street girl.
And that's not all, after Manuela left, her transgender husband also became a prostitute and contracted AIDS.
What's worse is that in this case, nun Rosa was also seduced to get pregnant as well.
As for the red smoke, her lover was addicted to drugs, which made her miserable.
None of the above can be carried over by the word "difficult".
But the director never intended to magnify, or exaltize, the suffering of these women.
Especially Manuela.
Manuela has never delved into her husband's series of behaviors, and only wants to live a good life for herself and her son.
Facing Rosa, who is pregnant with her husband and child, she only has distress and disdain for her husband.
She let Rosa live in her home and take care of her like her own child.
And constantly encourage Rosa, not to be afraid to be a mother.
Facing the red smoke that led to the death of his son.
Manuela didn't complain in her heart, but she still accepted Hongyan with a tolerant heart and became her assistant.
Ah Yue is even more open-minded.
She was almost raped by a drunk man.
After finally escaping, she helped the man to a safer and warmer place like a loving mother.
You may wonder what they are doing.
But I haven't experienced their lives, I'm not in their situation, and I can't judge their decisions.
They are just true to their emotions and live sincerely and freely.
In fact, it is not difficult to see that the women in the story are moving towards the identity of "mother" in various ways.
They are tolerant, resilient, and loving about the world.
There is an interesting detail.
There are a total of 3 important male characters in the movie, but they are all "absent".
Manuela's son died early in a car accident.
The husband lives forever in the words of others.
Rosa's father, who has Alzheimer's disease, doesn't even recognize his own daughter.
This setting not only refers to the absence of "father" and "man".
It also highlights the greatness of "women" and "mothers".
Almodóvar writes this passage at the end of the film:
This film is dedicated to Betty Davis...... and all the actresses who play the actresses; Dedicated to all the cast members, men and women, or men who have been transgendered into women, and all those who want to be mothers; Dedicated to my mother.
The mother in "All About My Mother" is not Manuela, a specific person.
It's a group of women called "mothers".
However, Almodóvar never thought of writing hymns to celebrate the sacred image of the Mother.
On one occasion, Manuela accompanied Rosa to the doctor's appointment, and after telling her story about herself and her husband as a "friend", she said:
We women can do anything to have something to rely on.
After hearing this, Rosa sighed:
We women are very bearable, and this is a plus.
Manuela scoffed when she heard this:
We're all stupid.
In Almodóvar's view, a flawless woman should not exist.
He wants women to sway, to generate lust, to express selfishness.
He wanted to pull them down from the altar called "Our Lady" and become real, flesh-and-blood beings.
Just like Manuela, she is by no means a good person who goes against the grain.
At first, in the face of Rosa's dependence, she refused.
Why should she bear the responsibility for other people's mistakes?
You're asking me to be your mother!
Her subsequent help to Rosa was not very good-natured.
It is a help and effort out of empathy for oneself and the plight of the female group.
Sister Rosa's pregnancy is more typical of "depraved" imagery.
Where else in the world could there be more betrayal than a holy clergyman, a good nun, who could not resist the temptation of an unclean person and contracted the disease?
and Rosa's mother, who can be described as the embodiment of selfishness in the movie.
is a mother, but she is unwilling to provide shelter for her daughter.
When her daughter is sick, she just visits + gives money.
An hour before her daughter gives birth, she also has to find time to see her husband.
Her daughter died in childbirth, and she was unwilling to take care of her grandson for fear of infecting herself.
All of this is contrary to the mainstream perception of the selfless mother image.
Almodóbal once said:
"All About My Mother" shows a woman's ability to endure pain. A woman doesn't have to be a professional actor to lie, act, and act well. Men and women share the same loneliness and pain, but women's reactions to it are much more dramatic and thrilling. In this sense, men do seem to be missing something compared to women.
In recent years, there have also been many film and television works that have pulled the "mother" off the altar.
Like the French movie "Full Time" the year before last.
is like "Hundred Flowers" starring Masami Nagasawa last year.
These works all depict an imperfect, even tainted mother.
Because, compared to the flattery of a flawless image.
A woman with flesh and blood, desires, and human shortcomings is even more admirable for her dedication after becoming a mother.
After all, the greatness of maternal love lies in a woman's ability to resolve and bear pain.
But this is not their obligation, nor is it the reason why they are "gods".
They are just ordinary people, and they also have the opportunity to make mistakes and the right to be imperfect.
So, never forget –
Mothers, in essence, are also ordinary women.