Volver, released in 2006, tells the story of Raimunda, a woman originally from a rural Spanish village who lives in Madrid and works as a janitor at the Madrid Barajas airport. Raimunda’s daughter kills Raimunda’s husband, (her own stepfather) in self-defense to protect herself from his sexual assault. Much of the film focuses on Raimunda’s cover up of this murder, while Raimunda’s discovery that her own mother whom she thought dead, is actually alive, runs parallel as subplot. Throughout the film Almodóvar captures the essence of ordinary life, while the narrative centres upon family life and the tragedies and joys it often brings with it.
Through the domestic interiors and set designs seen in the film, broader subjects such as the role of women, religion and food in Spanish culture grow beyond the mere visuals. Referring to the book The Meaning of Things by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Eugene Halton, as a way to understand the relation of people and objects, I explore the clothes, foods and domestic environments in Volver as a means to which Almodóvar explicates what is meaningful to his characters. In Volver the role of Spanish culture is an underlying theme, from beginning to end, and is testimony to Almodóvar’s background and upbringing in rural Spain, as well as his transition into the youth culture of the 1970s in Madrid, known as ‘La Movida Madrileña’.
Understanding Almodóvar’s work is understanding his cultural background, and Spain’s socio-political heritage of the late 20th Century; likewise, understanding his background is understanding his work. He was born and raised in the rural area of La Mancha until the age of sixteen when he moved to Madrid with his family, coinciding with the fall of Franco’s dictatorship. New freedoms of democracy came about, and as a result a source of influence for his work. The accelerated change in politics forced Spaniards to live in two different time frames simultaneously – an older generation stuck in the past and a younger generation ambitious to pursue the new future. This instantaneous break with repressive social norms and regulations became very much embedded in Almodóvar’s person and is evident in all of his films. It comes as no surprise therefore, that he is often referred to as a political filmmaker.
As an entirely self-taught cinéaste, Almodóvar had a very experimental career where he took part creatively in the youth culture of the late 1970s. His interest in American pop, the ‘swinging 1960s’ of Britain, Doris Day and flamenco singer Lola Flores are all factors to look for in his films, and are present in almost every scene in Volver while the underlying Spanish-ness takes the form of a continuous thread represented in the traditional and integral soundtrack. The imperative of narrative reigns over Volver, as in every film he has produced, while the artificiality of the film décor remains central to his aesthetic. Volver embraces the undeniable presence of death along with infinite references to religion, valued by Almodóvar mainly for its aesthetic potential.
Volver contains elements both of comedy and melodrama, but it is the comic that translates more vividly in the objects and set design, than the latter. Perhaps the most appealing characteristic of his films is the immediacy of life they transmit to the audience, both through their characters and set designs. There is something special about ordinary characters, the mundane and the unsophisticated lifestyles that repeatedly show up in films such as Volver. Through his stylistic choices – the close-up, the use of intense colour, the prominent presence of the colour red, floral patterns, kitsch interiors and working class clothes – one is able to appreciate that the ordinary may be far more interesting than the luxurious, after all. Volver also enhances Almodóvar’s fascination with women and the intense feminine presence so typical of Spanish culture from the region of La Mancha, where he was born.
Often focusing on the kitchen, patterned wallpapers, the importance of food, and Raimunda’s ever colourful and striking working class wardrobe, the domestic mise-en-scéne plays a crucial role in the film. As John Gibbs, author of Mise-en-Scéne Film Style and Interpretation, says, objects within the domestic realm establish what characters “cherish, hate or fear. They can communicate information in simple denotative terms or, through connotation, convey complex psychological aspects of the characters… Ultimately the objects in films form part of iconography of genres [and] compensate for what cannot be said directly.” Every detail in Volver has been meticulously chosen and placed in a specific space to portray the middle-class life of the woman from La Mancha. The obsession with women is clear from the opening scene in the cemetery, where one can see only women cleaning and adorning the long stretch of deathbeds. These women are shown cleaning the tombstones of family relatives – in many cases husbands. Through casual conversation amongst them and repetitive kissing and hugging as a manner of greeting, one discovers an entire world dominated by women, Spanish culture and death, all entangled in a very humorous way. The scene lasts approximately ten minutes, though it feels longer, emphasizing the director’s obsession with the idea that life ends up being almost shorter in real life than in fiction. Interestingly, the women are dressed in bursts of colour against the stark contrast of blacks and greys of the tombstones. Even the buckets, scrub brushes and brooms used to clean are colourful. All of these objects within themselves represent an association of the woman and cleaning, the woman and the home, the woman and her motherly instinct to take care of things, and a Spanish cultural tradition, where the housewife is still common.
The first view of the domestic world, which has already been implied in the opening scene, is the home of Tia Paula, Raimunda’s aunt. The house is typically white washed with a large wooden door of a rural and Moroccan influence. Laid out surrounding an interior patio at the heart of the house, elements such as white lace curtains, Andalusian ceramic tiles and religious artifacts hang on the walls — common objects found in this village home of La Mancha.
From crosses to miniature sanctuaries, it is obvious that praying is a large part of Tia Paula’s life. Perhaps due to her unstable mental state or simply her solitude, she is portrayed as a devout catholic. It must be highlighted that Catholicism remains an important part of Spanish life and culture, and more so in traditional rural areas such as La Mancha, where going to church is regarded as an event and duty. All of this is later emphasized at Tia Paula’s own funeral, where all of the village women, mostly of old age and widows, are revealed mourning and praying in black dress. Almodóvar creates a beautiful scene, shot from above, where black dresses contrast and blend with the black and white tiled floor, and the sounds of prayers are paced to the rhythm of the fans in their hands. In a sea of black, distinctly different to the rest of the film, the fans and rosaries establish the Spanish woman as both exotic and traditional, but above all, loyal to her religious upbringing and completely integrated decoratively in her surrounding.
Raimunda’s character, by contrast, is portrayed as a more modern woman who forms part of the generation of the post-Franco Spain where leaving the rural to move to the capital (Madrid) became a trend – very much in the same way Almodóvar left La Mancha to live in Madrid. Her style of dress is less conservative but she always wears a gold chain with a gold cross, and two medallions one with the Virgin Mary, the other with another religious depiction…probably a Saint. This object suggests that she remains true to her background and religious upbringing, regardless of any social upgrade or her attempt to break with the past. Wearing the chain with the religious amulets close to herself at all times, affirms the concept expressed in The Meaning of Things, that objects define us, and help to give us “purpose and direction in life.” In a sense, this chain, with the cross and the Virgin Mary, serves as Raimunda’s protection amidst the chaos and tragedy with which life confronts her. It demonstrates exactly what the authors of The Meaning of Things attempt to explain – that an object is formed of a complex set of layers that attribute a sense of emotional attachment between the owner and the object itself. In other words, what the chain really evokes is the idea that the real meaning of a possession, like that of a dream, does not lie in its manifest content, but in its underlying latent content. This object, so close to Raimunda at all times, serves to remind us of who she is and where she comes from – as well as fulfilling visual dynamism of every close-up of her.
Food, without a doubt, plays a comical role in the film. According to Almodóvar himself, “The women of his childhood were obsessed with food and feeding people,” and being Spanish myself makes it easy to understand the humorous tone employed: how often the family is gathered around food or the dining table, how it plays as a symbol of domestic unity, and how it is very much associated with the older relatives in one’s family. When Raimunda’s mother dies, the main topic of conversation is food, entirely ignoring the evident presence of death. The main concern becomes a set of tupperwares with Raimunda’s favourite dishes, which her mother has supposedly left behind for her. Prepared to the very last detail, each tupperware is labeled in her mother’s handwriting, and contains typical dishes of rural Spain such as baked wafers and pork in olive oil. Through these dishes we see the combination of Spanish culture, a recurring theme, and the profound sensitivities such objects can carry. In the end, of course, it is exactly this element of food, which Almodóvar subtly ridicules, that becomes Raimunda’s talent, saviour and invitation to a better future.
Inside Raimunda’s home, we see her intimate surroundings. Her house, like her, is a burst of colour and pattern; from a turqoise kitchen floor to a patterned colourful tea set, and textured chairs in the living room, the house is an explosion of ecclectic combinations of styles, furniture and textiles. Raimunda fits in her surroundings while her husband quite simply does not. (This demonstrates another way in which the interiors serve not only to compliment the narrative but also as a means to define the deeper layers a narrative sometimes cannot reveal.) To be more precise, the objects represent Raimunda and the emotional relationship they share, whilst her husband appears to have no visual connection with the space and therefore no emotional relationship with her.
Stylistically this interior is often filmed from above or from other elevated angles that express a sense of drama. In one of the kitchen scenes, Almodóvar focuses on Raimunda washing a large kitchen knife, slowly and almost perversely – the same knife her daughter used to kill her husband. Whether the kitchen setting with the food, and the large knife in her hand is an intentional premonition of what is to come, or not, is left to one’s own interpretation. My thoughts are in line with the idea that the scene is more closely related to Almodóvar’s expression of female sexuality and his general obsession with women, which can be seen throughout the films of his entire career. This sexuality expresses power over the social and religious taboos of Spanish culture, while Almodovar interprets it as a commodity in the same way social reality expresses this sexual commodity. However a similar shot seen towards the end of the film when the camera focuses on Raimunda’s hand chopping green and red peppers on a cutting board, seems to confirm the possibility of a premonition – or perhaps it is simply another gesture of female power and sensuality.
Much of the food is repeatedly filmed in close-ups in the same way that many of the characters’ faces are filmed too. Clearly intentional, it appears to re-emphasize this strong link between the woman and food, both crucial elements of Spanish culture. Ultimately Raimunda is always associated with food, and often filmed with it. A particular scene that depicts her as the quintessential Spanish small-town woman, is when she is at the market surrounded by a flood of colourful produce and again when she returns from the market with her cart full of vegetables and fruit. Amidst the heat of the day and the laborious task of walking up the hill to get home carrying all her shopping she still manages to remain beautiful in that imperfect and honest way that her character reveals from the beginning. The female world is re-confirmed yet again when other women from her neighbourhood lendher a hand with ingredients, establishing both food and cooking as the female domain and a world of female solidarity. (In interviews Almodóvar has even said that solidarity is a specifically female characteristic and not that characteristic of men.)
Objects such as the refrigerator, the knife and the keys to the restaurant play a strong part in determining much of Raimunda’s life. As explained in The Meaning of Things, “the [general] interaction with objects [whether domestic or not] alters the pattern of life” and it is certainly evident in the unraveling of Raimunda’s life in Volver. The knife acts as a symbol of her husband’s murder committed by her daughter; and the restaurant keys are a symbol of rescue and new beginnings. The restaurant keys further offer Raimunda a solution to hide the crime her daughter has committed by giving her access to the oversized refrigerator at the back of the restaurant. The refrigerator in the film plays an important role in the human affairs of the film’s characters, while the ownership of all such objects acts as an expression of Raimunda’s ability to control the environment. Almodóvar’s choice of a primarily domestic and technological appliance as Raimunda’s tool, given its ambivalent nature in relation to the female domestic world and its masculine structure and appearance, is truly fascinating.
Raimunda’s mother appears with a suitcase in many of her scenes, and is always displayed in an enormous array of colour, geometric and floral patterns, trinkets, toys, and things that resemble scrapbook ephemera. Perhaps her character alone carries an entire world of objects that one could explore but the essence of these objects that are all collected in one suitcase, is brings nostalgia from the past to her daughter Raimunda, as a more philosophical means to rebuild their relationship. Where there is a sense of loss, as in Raimunda’s case, objects take on a far more important meaning due to the impotence that one feels in trying to reach the deceased through the tangible objects left behind – this is exactly what one feels when watching Raimunda sweep her hand across her mother’s clothes in the wardrobe. Towards the end of the film, when Raimunda and her mother attempt to recover lost time and reconcile with their past, one realizes that the chosen objects and surroundings only further enhance the differences within the inner souls of both characters, which in turn translate into the evident differences between them.
The eclectic character of Almodóvar’s interiors in Volver in relation to kitsch and 1960’s Pop Art, merit a last mention. They pay homage to the kitsch interior and the world of trinkets and patterns. As a fan of both Wesselmann’s art and Almodóvar’s films, I could not avoid making a direct link between the two, both visually and intellectually as they both exploit themes of colour, the popular, the domestic and more importantly the woman. Wesselmann like Almodóvar, enjoys depicting the domestic world of the typical middle-class household via bathrooms and kitchens. The constant references to food, the female and the domestic in both art forms is an undeniable connection between these two artists working in different media.
Many of Wesselmann’s works embrace the recognition of popular imagery of the 1960s, in advertisements, packaging, beverages, and posters to establish taste and formulate the beautiful. Accordingly, Almodóvar expresses the same through the credits of his films as well as his fascination for television and advertising – a characteristic frequently incorporated in his films.
For both Almodóvar and Wesselmann, the sincerity of beauty seems to lie in the “familiarity of the everyday objects” – something evident in Wesselmann’s collages and Almodóvar’s sets. The more common the images they use in their work, the easier it becomes for them to explore other elements of colour, light, form and composition. As a result, compositions by both artists, though in diverse mediums, “constitute a way of appreciating aesthetically what the world has to offer.”
Volver brings together issues of life that the audience can comprehend, if not identify themselves with. The ordinary, with a touch of exaggerated realism, dark humor and infinite layers of culture, is what makes this film so moving. It is a tribute to the female world, maternity, food, religion and the dysfunctional relationships that develop from this world rooted in La Mancha. Yet in the end it is a representation that brings honour to a way of life that is extremely Spanish and visually beautiful in all of life’s faults and virtues. Almodóvar’s obsession with colour, pattern and surface throughout, deems the film a visual feast of an interesting and overtly simple life where what truly matters is a family meal or going to the market.
