Volver...

I really enjoyed screening this film. I would say it is a close second runner up to my favorite film of the quarter, La Misma Luna. In this film, all of the main women characters are faced (or have been faced) with some sort of tribulation in their life, caused by the machismo men that they are involved with. Again, a husband (Paco) is shown to be a low life, dirty man that does whatever he pleases and doesn't have the interests of his family in mind. He eventually gets his, when he tries to molest his own adopted daughter, of all things! I was glad to see that the daughter, even at such a young age, could stand up to him and show her strength. Raimunda, the main character, shows even greater strength for herself by being able to move on with her life to provide for her family, even if it meant committing an illegal crime! We later find out in the film that Raimunda was molested by her own father when she was young, and that her daughter was actually her sister, too. Getting though something like that has to be hard, to know that your daughter is a result of sexual abuse from your father. Yikes! That calls for an incredible amount of strength to move on after that and still act like a proper mother and provide for your child.

Irene, Raimunda's mother also had a rough time with her past, in which she let her emotions get the best of her and she committed 2 murders. You would never think that such nice, caring women were capable of such crimes. And then there is Sole, Raimunda's sister who runs her own business out of her home, and is a successful woman. All of the women in this film display great strength and courage to move through what life throws them.

As far as superstitious beliefs and reality in this film, I think two prime examples would be how everyone in the village believed that the 'East wind' makes you crazy, and the village believed that Aunt Paula had been effected by these winds because of all the 'crazy' things she would say about her sister, Irene. Aunt Paula was not crazy, because we later found out that Irene was alive all of the time and actually taking care of Aunt Paula. Another superstition was that the village also believed that Irene was a ghost that was haunting the village, and that many had seen here. Again, we find out that Irene had never died and had been alive all along.