#1012: ALMODÓVAR, Pedro: All About My Mother (1999)

ALMODÓVAR, Pedro (Spain)
All About My Mother [1999]
Spine #1012
Blu-ray


This Oscar-winning melodrama, one of Pedro Almodóvar's most beloved films, provides a dizzying, moving exploration of the meaning of motherhood. In an instant, nurse Manuela (Cecilia Roth) loses the teenage son she raised on her own. Grief-stricken, she sets out to search for the boy's long-lost father in Barcelona, where she reawakens into a new maternal role, as the head of a surrogate family that includes a pregnant, HIV-positive nun (Penélope Cruz); an illustrious star of the stage (Marisa Paredes); and a transgender sex worker (Antonia San Juan). Beautifully performed and bursting with cinematic references, All About My Mother is a vibrant tribute to female fortitude, a one-of-a-kind family portrait, and a work of boundless compassion.

101 minutes
Color
5.1 Surround
in Spanish
2:35:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2020
Director/Writer


Pedro Almodóvar was 50 when he wrote and directed All About My Mother.

Other Almodóvar films in the Collection:

#855: Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown (1988)
#722: Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1990)

The Film

A

Film Rating (0-60):

60

The Extras

The Booklet

Thirty-six page booklet featuring an essay by scholar Emma Wilson, a 1999 interview with Almodóvar, and a 1999 tribute he wrote to his mother.

Commentary

None.

Fifty-two minute

Documentary from 2012 on the making of the film, featuring interviews with Almodóvar; Agustin Almodóvar; actors Cruz, Paredes, Roth and San Juan; production manager Esther Garcia; and author Didier Eribon.

Television program

From 1999 featuring Almodóvar and his mother, Francisca Caballero, along with Cruz, Paredes, Roth, and San Juan.

Forty-eight minute

Post-screening Q&A in Madrid from 2019, featuring Almodóvar, Agustin Almodóvar, and Paredes.

Extras Rating (0-40):

39

60 + 39 =

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