Movie Review

Pedro Almodóvar’s ‘Parallel Mothers’ packs one of his hardest punches

Spain’s celebrated filmmaker and his collaborator/muse, Penélope Cruz, team up again to tackle themes of motherhood, rebirth and the Franco-era legacy

31 December 2021 - 00:00

Pedro Almodóvar came of age as an artist and a filmmaker in 1980s Spain, a country emerging from the long hangover of the Franco dictatorship’s decades-long repression and totalitarian rule. Though his films did not deal directly with Franco, they certainly reflected — in their colourful, punkish anarchic energy and celebration of sexual and expressive freedom — the mood of a country gleefully emerging from a sinisterly tragic period in its history...

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