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All About My Mother with Tamara Yajia · The Bechdel Cast

0:00
Speaker 1: On the Bechdel Cast. The questions ask if movies have.
0:04
Speaker 2: Women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
0:08
Speaker 2: or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, Zephyn Beast,
0:12
Speaker 2: start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.
0:16
Speaker 3: Welcome to the Bechdel Cast.
0:19
Speaker 4: It's me Caitlin, and it's me Jamie. Welcome to our
0:22
Speaker 4: podcast where, for many years now we have covered your
0:25
Speaker 4: favorite movies using an intersectional feminist perspective. Using the Betel
0:29
Speaker 4: test is a jumping off point for discussion. But Caitlin,
0:32
Speaker 4: what is that?
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Speaker 3: Well, it is a media metric created by our best
0:38
Speaker 3: friend Alison Bechdel along with her friend Liz Wallach.
0:41
Speaker 4: Recent convert to knowing the show exists. Alison Bechdel, Yes.
0:45
Speaker 3: Yes, yes. There are many versions of the test. The
0:47
Speaker 3: one that we use is this, do two characters of
0:51
Speaker 3: a marginalized gender have names? Do they speak to each other?
0:54
Speaker 3: And is there conversation about something other than a man?
0:58
Speaker 3: And also we like it if it's like an narratively
1:01
Speaker 3: substantial conversation not a problem with today's movie.
1:07
Speaker 4: No, truly, So we won't waste any more time because
1:10
Speaker 4: we've got a rich text today. We are covering the
1:15
Speaker 4: nineteen ninety nine movie All About My Mother with an
1:18
Speaker 4: incredible guests. So let's get her in here.
1:20
Speaker 3: Let's do it. She's a TV writer and author of
1:24
Speaker 3: the new book Cry for Me Argentina My Life, is
1:27
Speaker 3: a failed child star and also you know her from
1:30
Speaker 3: our episode on Home Alone It's tomorrow You're here, Hello, welcome.
1:36
Speaker 4: Back by Wow. Two such similar movies.
1:41
Speaker 1: Guys. I'm desperate to talk about this movie.
1:45
Speaker 4: I'm so excited to hear your thoughts on it because
1:48
Speaker 4: this is my first time seeing it, which what a
1:52
Speaker 4: treat Ooh, I'm so excited to talk about it, but
1:56
Speaker 4: first tell us about your book. Congratulations.
1:59
Speaker 1: First of all, thank you so much. I'm really proud
2:02
Speaker 1: of it. And it's a memoir. It's based on my upbringing.
2:06
Speaker 1: I'm from Argentina and I have very obscene parents and
2:12
Speaker 1: a very kind of depraved, not depraved, but sexually open
2:16
Speaker 1: family who couldn't stay in one place, so we moved
2:21
Speaker 1: from Argentina to the United States, back to Argentina, and
2:24
Speaker 1: then back to the United States, all in the span
2:27
Speaker 1: of my childhood. And in between of those moves, I
2:31
Speaker 1: became a like a child star that was starting to blossom,
2:37
Speaker 1: and once I got my big break, I was pulled
2:40
Speaker 1: away from Argentina back to the US. So the book
2:43
Speaker 1: revolves around that and you know, my crazy parents and yeah,
2:49
Speaker 1: I'm so bad at talking about my book, Jamie. Did
2:52
Speaker 1: you have that problem with yours where you're like.
2:54
Speaker 4: Oh, well, yeah, I'm just like, well, you know, hotdog thoughts,
3:00
Speaker 4: what do you think? And then would panic at a
3:05
Speaker 4: whiff of a follow up. I think you did. I
3:08
Speaker 4: think you did great. And it is such a great book.
3:12
Speaker 4: I was just telling Tim Off Mike that I read
3:15
Speaker 4: half of it in the hardcover form and then I
3:18
Speaker 4: read the other half via audiobook, and so I can
3:21
Speaker 4: vouch for both experiences. Do one do booth go nut Sell.
3:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's funny because I wrote the book thinking like
3:29
Speaker 1: my life was so funny and like every in like
3:31
Speaker 1: it was a comedy book. And halfway through I was like,
3:34
Speaker 1: oh there were issues and I have a lot of
3:39
Speaker 1: unresolved trauma, and so now I'm like, I have to
3:44
Speaker 1: pivot from just like, yeah, the book is it is funny,
3:48
Speaker 1: but there's some real serious issues talked about there too.
3:52
Speaker 4: So but at least you have an incredible therapist.
3:57
Speaker 1: Oh my god, and speaking of.
4:01
Speaker 3: Unresolved trauma, all about my mother's true God.
4:07
Speaker 4: Yeah, no shortage of that. What is your history with
4:12
Speaker 4: this movie?
4:14
Speaker 1: Yesterday was my sixth or seventh time watching it. Okay,
4:18
Speaker 1: it's my favorite movie of all times.
4:20
Speaker 4: Oh amazing, Yes, wow, thanks for talking to us about it.
4:24
Speaker 4: What again?
4:25
Speaker 1: It was on the list of like the you know,
4:27
Speaker 1: maybe we can do one of these, and I was
4:29
Speaker 1: like yes. And the first time I watched it, I
4:33
Speaker 1: was on shrooms whoa, And it really just blew my
4:38
Speaker 1: mind in like a deeper like way than I you know,
4:41
Speaker 1: I would have just normally watching it. And then yesterday
4:45
Speaker 1: it was cool because I, for what, I took notes
4:48
Speaker 1: while watching it and I did a little bit of
4:50
Speaker 1: research on it, something that I had never done. And
4:54
Speaker 1: God will get to it. But at this time of
4:56
Speaker 1: my life, when I'm literally today starting IVF, that's another thing, Jamie.
5:01
Speaker 4: Yeah, wow.
5:02
Speaker 1: Today, today, today are my first injections and what it
5:06
Speaker 1: means to be a mother and a caretaker and anyways,
5:10
Speaker 1: you can tell I have a lot to say. But
5:13
Speaker 1: another thing about it, real quick is that I wanted
5:15
Speaker 1: to I was going to suggest we do Avida because
5:18
Speaker 1: I wanted to do something like Argentine because my book,
5:23
Speaker 1: and as I watched it yesterday, I was like, I
5:25
Speaker 1: never realized that the two main characters, Lola and Manuela,
5:29
Speaker 1: they're Argentine.
5:31
Speaker 4: Yeah, I assumed that was like a part of that
5:33
Speaker 4: that's yeah.
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Speaker 1: I mean I knew she was, but I didn't realize
5:37
Speaker 1: that Lola was as well. And that I realized too.
5:42
Speaker 1: The reason that they immigrated to Spain was because they
5:45
Speaker 1: were escaping the dictatorship in Argentina. Okay, and that was
5:49
Speaker 1: like a brand new thing that I learned yesterday while
5:52
Speaker 1: watching it. So anyways, we can get into it. I
5:55
Speaker 1: just said a lot.
5:57
Speaker 4: No, thank you for trusting us with your favorite booth.
6:00
Speaker 4: I guess, Caitlyn, what is your history with this movie?
6:04
Speaker 3: I watched this movie during the great Caitlin movie binge
6:10
Speaker 3: of two thousand and four two thousand and five, which
6:13
Speaker 3: is when I saw many movies for the first time,
6:16
Speaker 3: and I didn't really remember anything about it because I'd
6:21
Speaker 3: never rewatched it. Mellow dramas are not really my genre,
6:26
Speaker 3: so I didn't feel super compelled to revisit it. But
6:30
Speaker 3: so much time had passed between my first viewing that
6:33
Speaker 3: I kind of just forgot everything about it, so watching
6:36
Speaker 3: it this time was sort of like watching it for
6:38
Speaker 3: the first time, and so it was really interesting to
6:42
Speaker 3: re experience. There's a lot to talk about, especially in
6:45
Speaker 3: the context of our show, because are there women in
6:50
Speaker 3: the movie and are they living their lives and talking
6:54
Speaker 3: to each other?
6:56
Speaker 4: They sure are, Boy, oh boy, don't worry about it.
7:00
Speaker 3: So yeah, I'm excited to discuss. And then, Jamie, you
7:03
Speaker 3: said you had not seen this movie before.
7:06
Speaker 4: I had not seen this movie before. It's been on
7:09
Speaker 4: my list for a long time. I've seen movies from
7:13
Speaker 4: Pedro Almodovar before. I hope I'm saying that correctly, because
7:17
Speaker 4: I have been worried about it all morning, and I
7:21
Speaker 4: also know I mean, I think it's fascinating that his
7:24
Speaker 4: body of work is so built around motherhood in general,
7:28
Speaker 4: and it wild right as if I had more time
7:31
Speaker 4: to prep for this episode, I was like, it would
7:33
Speaker 4: be cool if I had time to watch a almodvar
7:36
Speaker 4: movie about mothers from every decade, because there is one
7:40
Speaker 4: but the work of his that I had seen before.
7:43
Speaker 4: I saw The Room next Door, which came out last year,
7:47
Speaker 4: just a very different movie, very quiet, and then I've
7:51
Speaker 4: seen I always want to say portrait of a lady
7:55
Speaker 4: on fire, and that's just simply incorrect. Not Women on
7:58
Speaker 4: the Verge of a Nervous break But do you see
8:00
Speaker 4: where I's talk.
8:01
Speaker 3: Like Kayden a lot of prepositions.
8:04
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I was telling Caitlyn last night. The reason
8:07
Speaker 4: I saw Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.
8:10
Speaker 4: I saw it like ten years ago because there used
8:12
Speaker 4: to be this comedy show that I would do in
8:14
Speaker 4: Boston with this awesome, like very sweet comic West Hazard.
8:18
Speaker 4: It was at a record slash movie store and you
8:21
Speaker 4: would get paid in a DVD basically that Like, the
8:25
Speaker 4: host was like, you should see this movie, and he
8:28
Speaker 4: gave me a very unstable twenty one year old a
8:31
Speaker 4: DVD Women on the Merge of my Nervous Breakdown. He's like,
8:35
Speaker 4: I think this makes sense for you, and it's a
8:37
Speaker 4: great movie and I loved it. But this, yeah, this
8:39
Speaker 4: was my first time. It was all about my mother,
8:41
Speaker 4: and I really enjoyed it. I'm so excited to talk
8:44
Speaker 4: about it.
8:45
Speaker 3: Well, let's take a quick break and then we'll come
8:47
Speaker 3: back for the recap.
8:58
Speaker 4: And oh, we're back, and we're back.
9:01
Speaker 3: Okay, here is the story. We are in Madrid, Spain.
9:08
Speaker 3: We meet Manuela played by Cecilia Roth, who works in
9:12
Speaker 3: a hospital as a nurse and a coordinator who facilitates
9:17
Speaker 3: transplants of organs from organ donors to recipients. She goes
9:23
Speaker 3: home where she lives with her seventeen year old son, Esteban.
9:28
Speaker 3: They watch All About Eve together.
9:31
Speaker 4: I wish I had that experience with my mom. I
9:33
Speaker 4: was like, I want, I want to intensely watch All
9:36
Speaker 4: About Eve with my mom.
9:37
Speaker 1: Right.
9:38
Speaker 3: She tells her son about how when she was younger,
9:42
Speaker 3: she acted in an amateur theater troupe and performed a
9:47
Speaker 3: streetcar named Desire, which is a show that Manuela takes
9:51
Speaker 3: Esteban to for his birthday. And as they're waiting for
9:56
Speaker 3: one of the actors to come out for a Steban
10:00
Speaker 3: to get her autograph, he asks Manuela about his father,
10:05
Speaker 3: because all Manuela has told him is that his father
10:10
Speaker 3: died before he was born. Then the actor comes out,
10:15
Speaker 3: Uma played by Marisa parades and Esteban runs after her
10:20
Speaker 3: taxi and is hit by a car and killed. Manuela is,
10:25
Speaker 3: of course devastated. She gives her consent for Esteban to
10:31
Speaker 3: be an organ donor, so she's like now on the
10:34
Speaker 3: other side of her job, basically, and his heart is
10:38
Speaker 3: transplanted into another patient's body. She looks at the files
10:44
Speaker 3: to find out where his heart is being taken to,
10:47
Speaker 3: and she kind of like follows the heart on its journey.
10:51
Speaker 4: I really loved that. I loved it. Weirdly reminded me
10:55
Speaker 4: of a Simpson's episode Stay with Me Yea, where like
10:59
Speaker 4: where you start the movie thinking it's gonna go one
11:01
Speaker 4: way and then say, just are like, actually the movie
11:04
Speaker 4: is about this, And I really like that because it's
11:07
Speaker 4: like Also, the whole idea of her following her son's
11:10
Speaker 4: heart is like a thriller I would watch too, right.
11:14
Speaker 1: Totally she and she's like in black glasses and like
11:17
Speaker 1: a turtleneck. You're like, oh, incognito mode, and then it's
11:20
Speaker 1: just the guy walks by and says, ah, I got
11:22
Speaker 1: the heart of a young seventeen year old, and then
11:25
Speaker 1: you never see him again, right, and you're like.
11:27
Speaker 4: And good for you, and I'm happy for you.
11:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, he walks by. A friend of hers is like, hey, Manuela,
11:36
Speaker 3: I know that grief can look a lot of different ways,
11:40
Speaker 3: but maybe you shouldn't have done that.
11:43
Speaker 4: You gotta leave that guy alone. And she's like fair.
11:46
Speaker 4: I was like that really Yeah, and then the movie
11:49
Speaker 4: kind of starts yeah and is.
11:51
Speaker 3: About something else.
11:53
Speaker 4: I just love that.
11:53
Speaker 5: Yeah.
11:54
Speaker 3: Manuela travels to Barcelona to find Steban's other parent, who
12:00
Speaker 3: she had previously left when she was pregnant with Esteban
12:04
Speaker 3: seventeen years ago. She encounters her old friend Agrato, played
12:10
Speaker 3: by Antonio San Juan.
12:11
Speaker 4: Best character in dumb Movie, best performance ever. Yes, love
12:17
Speaker 4: this character.
12:18
Speaker 3: She is a trans woman and a sex worker who
12:22
Speaker 3: is being assaulted when Manuela finds her, so Manuela comes
12:26
Speaker 3: to her rescue, administers some first aid, and asks Agrotto
12:32
Speaker 3: where their mutual friend Lola is. We will eventually gather
12:38
Speaker 3: that Lola is Esteban's other parent, who Agrotto had kind
12:44
Speaker 3: of taken in and was caring for. But Lola recently
12:48
Speaker 3: robbed Agrotto and skipped town. And because Agratto is injured
12:53
Speaker 3: from the assault, she can't do her usual work, so
12:58
Speaker 3: she and Manuela go to see a nun Rosa played
13:02
Speaker 3: by Penelope Cruz for help.
13:04
Speaker 4: Baby. Penelope Cruz too, She's so young, She's.
13:07
Speaker 1: So cute, Like how beautiful can a person be? Oh?
13:12
Speaker 4: She is constantly challenging this.
13:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, really.
13:18
Speaker 3: Rosa takes Manuela to her mother's house, hoping that her
13:23
Speaker 3: mother will hire Manuela as a cook, but her mom
13:27
Speaker 3: refuses because she's very judgy and thinks Manuela is a
13:30
Speaker 3: sex worker and doesn't want to be around her. Then
13:34
Speaker 3: Rosa starts feeling nauseous, so Manuela brings her to the
13:38
Speaker 3: apartment she's renting until Rosa's illness passes. We'll put a
13:43
Speaker 3: pin in that. Then Manuela goes to see Streetcar Named
13:49
Speaker 3: Desire again with the same cast as the show she
13:53
Speaker 3: saw with her son in Madrid.
13:55
Speaker 4: She's stronger than me. Yeah, I would never step foot
13:58
Speaker 4: in a theater again. I would forget that art existed.
14:02
Speaker 4: She is such I mean, she's a strong character for
14:05
Speaker 4: all sorts of reasons, but this is one of them,
14:07
Speaker 4: very specific.
14:08
Speaker 3: One for sure. And she approaches Uma, the actor who
14:13
Speaker 3: is Steban, wanted an autograph from Uma is upset because
14:17
Speaker 3: she has recently started dating her co star Nina played
14:20
Speaker 3: by Candela Pena, who had like just run out of
14:24
Speaker 3: the theater, so Uma has Manuela accompany her to find Nina.
14:31
Speaker 3: She says the famous line from Streetcar Named Desire, where
14:34
Speaker 3: she's like I've always depended on the kindness of strangers.
14:37
Speaker 3: Because Manuela is this stranger who just like comes into
14:40
Speaker 3: her dressing room. She's like, oh, you're here, can you
14:43
Speaker 3: help me? So they go looking for Nina, who is
14:48
Speaker 3: dealing with addiction issues. They find her, and Nina drives
14:54
Speaker 3: off in a hurry, with Uma accidentally taking Manuela's purse them.
15:01
Speaker 3: The next day, Rosa pays Manuela a visit to ask
15:05
Speaker 3: if she can rent a room from her. Turns out
15:08
Speaker 3: that Rosa is pregnant and needs a place to kind
15:12
Speaker 3: of hide out during her pregnancy.
15:15
Speaker 4: Like you said, she's pregnant. She'sregnant.
15:17
Speaker 3: She is pregnant, yes, Greg, Yeah, she is with Greg
15:22
Speaker 3: and she needs to hide out during this pregnancy on
15:24
Speaker 3: account of her being a nun and all.
15:28
Speaker 4: There's a lot going on, Yes, she's Every new detail
15:34
Speaker 4: you learn about her is wilder than the last, Yeah.
15:38
Speaker 3: For sure, including that Rosa has gotten pregnant from Lola,
15:44
Speaker 3: the person who had also gotten Manuela pregnant, you know,
15:48
Speaker 3: seventeen or eighteen years prior. I think because of this,
15:52
Speaker 3: Manuela is reluctant to let Rosa stay with her, but
15:56
Speaker 3: she eventually changes her mind and Rosa will move in.
16:00
Speaker 4: Because she's the ultimate mother. Yes, she is the one
16:03
Speaker 4: true mother. Well, I mean there's a lot, there's a
16:06
Speaker 4: vigilian mothers, but she's the mother and.
16:08
Speaker 1: The protector of all.
16:10
Speaker 4: Yes, But I also feel like it gets around so
16:13
Speaker 4: many tropes of like you can see her struggle with
16:15
Speaker 4: stuff and like be like, ah, should I do this?
16:17
Speaker 4: And then like you can see her thinking the performance
16:20
Speaker 4: is so good. Oh this Booe's great.
16:21
Speaker 1: Yeah.
16:21
Speaker 3: Yeah. So then Manuela goes to the theater to get
16:25
Speaker 3: her purse back from Uma, who offers Manuela a job
16:29
Speaker 3: as her personal assistant, and Manuela accepts and starts working
16:34
Speaker 3: like one second later. She then takes Rosa to a
16:39
Speaker 3: doctor's appointment. She has hypertensions, so there's a possibility she
16:44
Speaker 3: could Miscarrie, and she also asks for an HIV slash
16:51
Speaker 3: AIDS test, citing that she works with you know, high
16:54
Speaker 3: risk people, so she wants to have a test. A
16:58
Speaker 3: couple weeks past, another show of a streetcar named Desire
17:02
Speaker 3: is about to start, but Nina, who plays Stella, is
17:06
Speaker 3: drunk and bails at the last minute, so Manuela offers
17:11
Speaker 3: to step in, saying that she can do Nina's part.
17:14
Speaker 3: She knows the lines, and she does a great job,
17:17
Speaker 3: like almost too good of a job.
17:20
Speaker 1: Better.
17:20
Speaker 4: Yeah, she's unreal.
17:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Uma and Nina are like, wait a minute,
17:26
Speaker 3: how do you know this part so well? What's going on?
17:29
Speaker 4: I appreciate that. She's like, it's like all about Eve.
17:32
Speaker 4: You're like, yeah, exactly.
17:34
Speaker 3: She's like, you're stealing my life and my stardom and stuff.
17:39
Speaker 3: And Manuela tells them about how she took her son
17:43
Speaker 3: to see their play in Madrid a couple months ago,
17:47
Speaker 3: and that he was killed running after their taxi to
17:50
Speaker 3: get UMA's autograph.
17:52
Speaker 4: Oh, and she must have felt like such a asshole
17:56
Speaker 4: for that one. Yeah.
17:58
Speaker 2: Yeah.
17:58
Speaker 3: And Manuela's crying as she tells the miss and she
18:02
Speaker 3: quits her job and runs off.
18:04
Speaker 1: Oh.
18:05
Speaker 3: The next day, Uma comes to Manuela's apartment to ask
18:09
Speaker 3: her to come back to work, but Manuela is like,
18:13
Speaker 3: I can't. I have to take care of Rosa, who
18:16
Speaker 3: has just learned that, in addition to being gregnant, she
18:22
Speaker 3: is HIV positive. Then Agrotto comes over as well, and
18:27
Speaker 3: everyone is sort of like, hey, Agrotto, why don't you
18:31
Speaker 3: take Manuela's job and work for Uma? So that happens
18:36
Speaker 3: and they have like just a nice little gals han they.
18:40
Speaker 1: Get drunk, they eat peanuts or something because there's like
18:44
Speaker 1: shells all over the table.
18:45
Speaker 3: They're laughing, there happened a nice time, so sweet.
18:49
Speaker 4: I love it.
18:50
Speaker 3: Agrotto starts working for Uma. There's still a lot of
18:55
Speaker 3: tension with Nina. She's still dealing with addiction. Then one night,
19:03
Speaker 3: the streetcar show has to be canceled because Uma and
19:07
Speaker 3: Nina get into a fight and nearly kill each other.
19:10
Speaker 3: So instead a Grotto goes on stage and does a
19:13
Speaker 3: comedic monologue about her life.
19:16
Speaker 4: She does like a one woman show. She's like, well
19:18
Speaker 4: I have you here? Yeah, can I workshop something?
19:23
Speaker 1: Probably my favorite, the best part of the movie to
19:25
Speaker 1: me is this monologue, Like it's really great.
19:28
Speaker 3: It's all about the different cosmetic surgeries she has had
19:32
Speaker 3: in order to be quote unquote authentic, and the audience
19:36
Speaker 3: is loving it. They're laughing, they're living, they're loving. And
19:40
Speaker 3: back at home, Rosa's mom, whose name I believe is
19:44
Speaker 3: also Rosa Rosa, comes by for a visit. She learns
19:51
Speaker 3: about Rosa's pregnancy and I believe her HIV diagnosis, and
19:58
Speaker 3: Rosa Senior does not really know how to deal.
20:01
Speaker 4: She's not the ultimate mother. She's a piece of work.
20:04
Speaker 1: I have lots to say about her when the time comes.
20:08
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yes, yes. Then Manuela takes Rosa to the
20:12
Speaker 3: hospital for her sea section. On the way, Rosa sees
20:17
Speaker 3: her dog and her father, who doesn't seem to recognize Rosa.
20:22
Speaker 3: It seems like he has dementia of some kind.
20:26
Speaker 4: Oh that scene is really heartbreaking, I know. But the dog,
20:30
Speaker 4: you're oh yeah.
20:34
Speaker 3: Then at the hospital, Rosa says she intends to name
20:38
Speaker 3: her baby Esteban, and that she has figured out that
20:42
Speaker 3: Manuela's son's other parent is also Lola, and Rosa makes
20:48
Speaker 3: Manuela promise that if anything happens to her, Manuela will
20:51
Speaker 3: tell her child everything and not hide anything. And Manuela's like,
20:58
Speaker 3: you can tell your kid yourself, nothing's going to happen
21:02
Speaker 3: to you, which is a death sentence for any character.
21:05
Speaker 3: Because cut to the next scene, it is Rose's funeral.
21:10
Speaker 3: She presumably died during the surgery, and Lola played by
21:16
Speaker 3: Tony Knot, shows up to the funeral to explain why
21:22
Speaker 3: she stole from a grotto to tell Manuela that she
21:26
Speaker 3: is dying and to say goodbye. Lola finds out about
21:31
Speaker 3: her and Manuela's son and wants to see him, but
21:35
Speaker 3: Manuela tearfully explains that.
21:39
Speaker 1: God, I cried at that part.
21:41
Speaker 3: Oh yeah. She tells Lola that Esteban was killed in
21:45
Speaker 3: a car accident, and in the span of like two minutes,
21:49
Speaker 3: Lola learns that she had a son and also that
21:53
Speaker 3: that son was tragically killed, and it's just all very devastating.
21:59
Speaker 4: God, It's nothing can prepare you for the last twenty
22:03
Speaker 4: minutes of this movie. It is just a It's a
22:07
Speaker 4: lot in a good way, but it's a lot. It is.
22:10
Speaker 3: Yeah. Then we cut to Rose's parents' house. Manuela now
22:16
Speaker 3: lives there with baby Steban, working as their cook and
22:20
Speaker 3: taking care of the baby. A month later, Manuela meets
22:25
Speaker 3: up with Lola and brings the baby. There's concern that
22:30
Speaker 3: the baby will also turn out to be HIV positive,
22:34
Speaker 3: but Manuela doesn't seem worried. She also shows photos of
22:40
Speaker 3: older Esteban to Lola, as well as Esteban's journal in
22:45
Speaker 3: which he wrote something on the day that he died
22:49
Speaker 3: that he desperately wanted to meet his other parent, and
22:54
Speaker 3: that's also very heart wrenching. Then we see and a
23:00
Speaker 3: grotto at the theater as Uma is rehearsing for a
23:04
Speaker 3: play and they receive a letter from Manuela saying that
23:09
Speaker 3: living with Rosa's parents was unbearable, so she left Barcelona
23:13
Speaker 3: with baby A Steban, who she is now raising as
23:17
Speaker 3: her own son.
23:18
Speaker 4: I loved, I loved how quickly that's dealt with where
23:21
Speaker 4: she was like, Yeah, so that was obviously fuck a
23:24
Speaker 4: funck that situation. So we got out of there out
23:28
Speaker 4: good for you, truly.
23:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, And then we cut to two years later. Manuela
23:32
Speaker 3: is returning to Barcelona with toddler A Steban. He has
23:37
Speaker 3: neutralized the virus and so doctors want to study him.
23:43
Speaker 3: And then Manuela reunites with Uma and a Grotto, and
23:46
Speaker 3: we learned a couple things like that Lola has passed away,
23:51
Speaker 3: that Nina left to get married to someone.
23:53
Speaker 1: Else and had an ugly baby, very ugly baby.
24:00
Speaker 4: Fun detail to add it. And that's the end of
24:03
Speaker 4: the movie. Yeah, so let's.
24:06
Speaker 3: Take another quick break and we'll come back to discuss.
24:19
Speaker 4: Yeah, where would we like to start here tomorrow?
24:23
Speaker 3: Does anything jump out to you?
24:25
Speaker 1: The first thing I wanted to say is I realized
24:27
Speaker 1: that Alma Dovar's mother died either while he was shooting
24:32
Speaker 1: this or like the year it came out, and I
24:36
Speaker 1: just the dedication at the end killed me. Like starting
24:41
Speaker 1: by the end, there's this beautiful dedication. I can't remember
24:44
Speaker 1: the beginning. It's like for all women who want to
24:46
Speaker 1: be actresses, for all something like.
24:48
Speaker 3: That, actresses who have played actresses.
24:51
Speaker 1: Yes, it's very meta the movie. Yeah, and we can
24:54
Speaker 1: talk about that too. But then it says, and for
24:58
Speaker 1: all women who want to be mothers and for my mother.
25:03
Speaker 1: And that's when I was just like, there are levels
25:08
Speaker 1: of mothering and sisterhood in this movie that blow my
25:12
Speaker 1: mind because it's not so much about mothers, but it's
25:16
Speaker 1: like caretaking in all its forms anyways, that's amorphous. But
25:21
Speaker 1: I just wanted to say.
25:22
Speaker 4: That, Yeah, no, I like that was one thing that
25:26
Speaker 4: I mean, especially for it's time, Like I was really
25:31
Speaker 4: pleasantly surprised, and I know that there's stuff to talk about,
25:35
Speaker 4: but that he so thoroughly understands also just like a
25:39
Speaker 4: male o to her understanding, like being so open to
25:44
Speaker 4: not this very prescriptive idea of motherhood. Yes, and in
25:48
Speaker 4: a world where like even in movies that I love,
25:52
Speaker 4: there is usually like the mother character that is sort
25:55
Speaker 4: of and there she is because she needs to be
25:57
Speaker 4: there for whatever plot contrive. It's reasons you have, Like
26:01
Speaker 4: he clearly has spent a lot of his life thinking
26:04
Speaker 4: about what motherhood can look like and how you just
26:08
Speaker 4: approaches to parenthood in general, yes, what it can look like,
26:12
Speaker 4: and allowing them to be full people outside of that
26:15
Speaker 4: role while that role still means a lot to like
26:18
Speaker 4: it just it just was very I don't know, it's
26:21
Speaker 4: so thoughtful, but not in a way that felt like, yeah,
26:24
Speaker 4: they could still be funny and like, you know, hang
26:26
Speaker 4: out together and get drunk it like do what I
26:28
Speaker 4: just I just really liked it.
26:32
Speaker 2: Yeah.
26:33
Speaker 1: I think of this movie as partly a comedy because
26:36
Speaker 1: the funny parts are so funny too. And one thing
26:41
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about before anything is like his
26:44
Speaker 1: portrayal of men. To me, it says so much about
26:49
Speaker 1: how he sees women, because I made a note of this,
26:53
Speaker 1: Like the men in the movie are kind of rude
26:56
Speaker 1: as hell, Like there's the doctor who is awful to
27:02
Speaker 1: Penelope Cruz's character when.
27:05
Speaker 3: Cold and condescending cold.
27:07
Speaker 1: Yes, the actor in the play who's like begging Agrado
27:12
Speaker 1: for a blowjob. Remember that part, Like, oh, yeah, yep.
27:17
Speaker 4: Yeah.
27:17
Speaker 3: Basically, he finds out that Agrato was formerly a sex
27:20
Speaker 3: worker and thinks that gives him license to ask her
27:26
Speaker 3: for a blowjob because he's feeling on edge, and she's like,
27:30
Speaker 3: I'm retired. Also, this is inappropriate, like what you're like no, yeah,
27:35
Speaker 3: She's like no, and then he's just like please no.
27:38
Speaker 5: Yeah.
27:38
Speaker 1: It's like those are like the main like men's speaking parts.
27:41
Speaker 1: And then oh, Penelope Cruz's father, who like, there's a
27:46
Speaker 1: reason symbolically that he has dementia. He is an absent person.
27:51
Speaker 1: He doesn't like exist for her, and I don't think
27:56
Speaker 1: that's just like there's a reason for this. And the
28:00
Speaker 1: fact that when Penelope Cruise at the end of the
28:03
Speaker 1: movie sees her father and the dog at the park,
28:07
Speaker 1: she calls for the dog.
28:10
Speaker 4: Yeah.
28:11
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I feel like even with Lola, like as
28:14
Speaker 1: a parent was completely absent too. I don't know what
28:20
Speaker 1: this means, but it just says a lot.
28:23
Speaker 4: I totally agree. It's like physically there, but they're not
28:27
Speaker 4: emotionally present. And again, it's like there's a gradient to
28:31
Speaker 4: what that looks like where it's like he's not taking
28:35
Speaker 4: the easy way out and you know, doing sort of
28:38
Speaker 4: a copy paste of like everyone is like misogyny the
28:40
Speaker 4: guy or whatever, where it's like, yeah, which which you
28:43
Speaker 4: used sometimes you come up? But yeah, like her father's
28:45
Speaker 4: absence because of I mean, we don't get the specifics
28:50
Speaker 4: or there's just some men that just are too horny
28:54
Speaker 4: to function and are like trying to basically assault our
28:58
Speaker 4: favorite characters, you know, you know. And then we have
29:02
Speaker 4: two prominent characters, even though we don't meet Lola until
29:06
Speaker 4: the last i think ten minutes of the movie, who
29:09
Speaker 4: are trans women and who are also very different characters
29:14
Speaker 4: as we can get into. But yeah, I mean, just
29:17
Speaker 4: for a movie that came out in ninety nine is like,
29:20
Speaker 4: I think, pretty unheard of at the time. Yeah, that's
29:24
Speaker 4: the thing.
29:24
Speaker 3: This movie does a better job humanizing different types of
29:30
Speaker 3: marginalized people than most movies of this time were able
29:35
Speaker 3: to do, and even movies that came out after this.
29:38
Speaker 3: But between the characters who are trans women, between the
29:43
Speaker 3: characters who are women who date women, sex workers, people
29:49
Speaker 3: living with HIV and AIDS, people dealing with addiction, like,
29:53
Speaker 3: there's so much more humanization of people who are largely
30:00
Speaker 3: punched down to and made jokes of and treated as
30:05
Speaker 3: not human. This movie does the opposite and lets us
30:10
Speaker 3: get to know these characters and gives them interiority. And
30:14
Speaker 3: I kept thinking to myself that the events of this
30:19
Speaker 3: movie and the different circumstances that characters find themselves in
30:23
Speaker 3: are not unlike what you might see in like a
30:28
Speaker 3: soap opera or a telenovella.
30:30
Speaker 1: Yeah.
30:30
Speaker 4: Yeah, but the.
30:31
Speaker 3: Movie handles these circumstances and even though it is melodrama,
30:36
Speaker 3: it is way more like earnest and honest and heartfelt.
30:40
Speaker 3: It never feels overblown or anything like that. Is just
30:43
Speaker 3: so beautifully done.
30:46
Speaker 4: And I like that, like throughout, Alma Devar is not
30:49
Speaker 4: shying away from like citing his sources, Like he's like,
30:52
Speaker 4: I'm thinking about all of that Eve, I'm thinking about
30:55
Speaker 4: Street Cardime Desire, and actually like weaves his own influences
30:59
Speaker 4: into the story in a really cool way.
31:02
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah. There's also I was writing down all
31:05
Speaker 1: of the like mentions of other works, and it was
31:07
Speaker 1: those two and then Music for Chameleons by Truman Capoti,
31:12
Speaker 1: which is the book she gives her son, and I
31:14
Speaker 1: haven't read that. I actually haven't seen all about Eve
31:18
Speaker 1: or street Car Named Desires, so none of the references.
31:21
Speaker 4: Did I get you would love all about ev Oh
31:25
Speaker 4: my god, because I'm not a big street car head,
31:27
Speaker 4: but all about Eve rips. It's so good.
31:29
Speaker 1: I'm gonna watch it tonight. Anyways.
31:32
Speaker 4: Yeah, I wanted to talk about Lola because Lola is
31:35
Speaker 4: a such a complicated character, and I was again because
31:39
Speaker 4: this movie is so particular, I had no idea where
31:43
Speaker 4: it was going to go with regard to Lola's character,
31:46
Speaker 4: because for the majority of the movie, Lola is someone
31:48
Speaker 4: we know about in terms of her effect on others,
31:53
Speaker 4: but we don't really know anything about her as a person.
31:57
Speaker 4: My I guess, like, ooh god, I hope that it's not,
32:00
Speaker 4: because I like my worry was because you know, she
32:04
Speaker 4: was HIV positive, and I think it's sort of implied
32:06
Speaker 4: that that is ultimately why she passes that. You know,
32:11
Speaker 4: like there's all of these I feel like we've talked
32:13
Speaker 4: about it, like kind of more frequently on the show recently,
32:16
Speaker 4: of how HIV is like presented in movies over time,
32:21
Speaker 4: and you know, there's been well intentioned attempts to show
32:27
Speaker 4: characters with HIV that end up being kind of condescending
32:29
Speaker 4: on a longer timeline. I was worried that it was
32:32
Speaker 4: going to be like, here is like one of two
32:35
Speaker 4: trans characters we know, and all we really know about
32:38
Speaker 4: her is that she has HIV and has children that
32:43
Speaker 4: she doesn't know about, and like sort of these broad,
32:46
Speaker 4: more stereotyped ideas and then we meet her. And I
32:51
Speaker 4: wasn't able to find a ton of writing from trans
32:54
Speaker 4: writers specifically about this movie. I would like to listeners,
32:58
Speaker 4: please let us know how you feel about this movie.
33:00
Speaker 4: But I did really appreciate at very least that like,
33:04
Speaker 4: by the end of the movie, you know that the
33:06
Speaker 4: intention is to treat her with all of the humanity
33:10
Speaker 4: she deserves to be treated with. It's just like, oh, yeah,
33:13
Speaker 4: and you get to see that, you know, like she's
33:17
Speaker 4: gotten an extremely raw deal in her life. And the
33:20
Speaker 4: movie also doesn't shy away from how people treated trans
33:24
Speaker 4: women at this time.
33:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, in the same way that you could make the
33:29
Speaker 3: argument that the only two trans women who we get
33:33
Speaker 3: to know are also sex workers or former sex workers,
33:38
Speaker 3: because that's a trope often affiliated with transwomen in media.
33:44
Speaker 3: And to be clear, the issue here is that that
33:47
Speaker 3: specific representation of trans women doing sex work tends to
33:51
Speaker 3: be presented in media with a sense of judgment attached
33:55
Speaker 3: to it and without examining any of the context of
33:59
Speaker 3: why that's a job some trans women do, and without
34:02
Speaker 3: developing those characters in any meaningful way. I feel like
34:06
Speaker 3: we had a similar discussion on the Tangerine episode. Oh yeah, yeah,
34:10
Speaker 3: I think the movie gives the characters enough, again just
34:15
Speaker 3: interiority that we're deviating from like the trope territory and
34:20
Speaker 3: actually like giving them characterization the way that again a
34:24
Speaker 3: lot of other movies don't bother.
34:26
Speaker 4: To do, right, and even the way that like HIV
34:29
Speaker 4: is presented in the movie, the fact that it's not
34:32
Speaker 4: just a trans character who has HIV, like Rosa's experience
34:37
Speaker 4: is very different from Lola's experience, and there's also sort
34:40
Speaker 4: of this gradient of like what that can look like.
34:44
Speaker 4: And I really appreciated that Almadovar goes out of his
34:48
Speaker 4: way to make it clear to the audience that this
34:51
Speaker 4: is not a death sentence for baby Estevon either, and like, yeah,
34:56
Speaker 4: goes out of his way to dispel probably what in
34:59
Speaker 4: ninety nine and a lot of people now as well
35:01
Speaker 4: would not really know or like think about.
35:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, that's the thing about Almolo is like there's
35:08
Speaker 1: nuance to his movies, and like we were saying, you
35:12
Speaker 1: think it's gonna be about Manuela following the guy that
35:16
Speaker 1: got the Heart, but it's not. It's just this little thing.
35:18
Speaker 1: And then you think she's gonna stay living with the grandparents,
35:22
Speaker 1: but she's like, I'm out of here. To me, that's
35:25
Speaker 1: like those subtleties or like kind of deviations from the
35:29
Speaker 1: path is good writing that it hasn't been touched by
35:34
Speaker 1: execs who want everything to mean something yeah, yeah.
35:39
Speaker 3: You know, or for everything to be like a tidy,
35:44
Speaker 3: nice a reason yes, little happy ending, or a like yes,
35:49
Speaker 3: you can tell that this is not a Hollywood movie totally,
35:52
Speaker 3: that this is like a Spanish movie, because if this
35:56
Speaker 3: script came across the desk of Hollywood executives, they would
36:00
Speaker 3: have just been like, no, it needs to be more whatever,
36:05
Speaker 3: like Hollywood happy ending vibes.
36:07
Speaker 1: Yeah. And another thing about the transsex workers. I have
36:12
Speaker 1: you guys seen that TV show Veno. It was an
36:15
Speaker 1: HBO show. It's really amazing. It's about a famous trans
36:19
Speaker 1: woman from Spain and like around the same time, and
36:24
Speaker 1: there's an entire episode where she talks about how it
36:28
Speaker 1: was nearly impossible for trans women to get jobs at
36:32
Speaker 1: like hospitals or stores because there was so much discrimination
36:37
Speaker 1: and sex work was kind of there the only ways
36:40
Speaker 1: they could make a living, right, So I think it's
36:43
Speaker 1: a reality. I don't know in the US how it is,
36:47
Speaker 1: but I know in Argentina it's the same way too,
36:50
Speaker 1: or it was the same way too, especially in the nineties.
36:54
Speaker 4: And I think that like what Almodovart does here that
36:58
Speaker 4: makes it clear that he's not like stereotyping these characters
37:01
Speaker 4: because there is precedent for it. Is that like we
37:05
Speaker 4: see in particular, we see a Grotto is exploring other
37:10
Speaker 4: passions of her yes, like she's performing and she's you know,
37:14
Speaker 4: has has a very particular attitude towards sex work where
37:17
Speaker 4: she's not against it, but she's like, I don't do
37:18
Speaker 4: that anymore. I'm doing this now, And it's not he
37:22
Speaker 4: just writes people as people.
37:24
Speaker 1: She's retired.
37:25
Speaker 4: She's retired, yeah, and she.
37:27
Speaker 1: Has pride in the sex work she does, yeah, which
37:31
Speaker 1: I think is amazing, Like she knows she's really good
37:34
Speaker 1: at it, She's all All of those subtleties are what
37:38
Speaker 1: make his movies so brilliant.
37:41
Speaker 3: There's an exchange of dialogue where Agrotto is saying, I
37:44
Speaker 3: was so good at my work that I could give
37:48
Speaker 3: a blowjob in public and the only person who noticed
37:51
Speaker 3: was the recipient.
37:52
Speaker 2: Of their.
37:54
Speaker 3: And then they're kind of they're saying this because they
37:57
Speaker 3: think that Uma is in the other room out of earshot,
38:01
Speaker 3: because they like, don't know how she's going to take
38:03
Speaker 3: information like that. But then Uma stepped right up and
38:06
Speaker 3: she's just like, oh, it's been so long since I've
38:08
Speaker 3: sucked a cock, And then they all burst out laughing.
38:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so cute.
38:13
Speaker 4: That's great.
38:13
Speaker 3: It's interesting because Uma is more or less of the
38:16
Speaker 3: same generation as Rosa's mother, and Rosa's mother is a
38:21
Speaker 3: character who is like not tolerant. She is not understanding.
38:25
Speaker 3: She does not want to be around sex workers. She's
38:28
Speaker 3: very disparaging of them, and so you might assume, oh, no,
38:31
Speaker 3: Uma might be the same way, but she is not.
38:36
Speaker 3: She is very accepting and understanding of everyone around her.
38:41
Speaker 1: Both Uma and Nina, her lover, are the two characters
38:45
Speaker 1: in the movie that confuse me the most in that
38:48
Speaker 1: I don't quite understand what, like I can't pinpoint like
38:54
Speaker 1: this is what they're doing in the movie, or this
38:56
Speaker 1: is what type of person they are, but Roses I
39:00
Speaker 1: pinned her immediately as a narcissist and it just it showed,
39:06
Speaker 1: like I have a line that she says written down
39:09
Speaker 1: when she's talking about Penelope Cruz, her daughter. She says,
39:13
Speaker 1: ever since she was born, she's felt like an alien
39:16
Speaker 1: to me. And to me, that's like a person who
39:21
Speaker 1: had a child but isn't a caretaker, isn't equipped, it's
39:27
Speaker 1: too narcissistic, sees the child as an extension of herself,
39:32
Speaker 1: and thus, you know, she's ashamed of what her daughter
39:35
Speaker 1: does for a living, which is the opposite of Manuela,
39:39
Speaker 1: who literally everybody she meets gravitates to her for caretaking.
39:45
Speaker 1: And it just comes so instinctually to her. It's amazing,
39:49
Speaker 1: even when those people aren't her biological children.
39:53
Speaker 3: Because most of them aren't. And she she cares for
39:56
Speaker 3: a grotto, she cares for Rosa, she cares for a
39:59
Speaker 3: baby Debon, she cares for Uma, all these different characters
40:04
Speaker 3: she's providing care for in a way that is also
40:09
Speaker 3: contextualized by the story. I mean, she's just suffered this horrible,
40:13
Speaker 3: tragic loss and it's, you know, feeling an emptiness that
40:18
Speaker 3: she more or less fills by helping others.
40:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, and she does say to Manuela says, at one point,
40:27
Speaker 1: I have it written in Spanish. It's something like you
40:30
Speaker 1: don't pick your parents. You get what you get, and
40:36
Speaker 1: it's the fucking truth. But then again, like, did you
40:40
Speaker 1: guys notice how, I mean you obviously did. How She
40:43
Speaker 1: pretends that her and Penelope Cruz are sisters, and it
40:48
Speaker 1: made me think of sisters like older sisters taking care
40:51
Speaker 1: of younger sisters when a mother. I have a very
40:55
Speaker 1: narcissistic mother who you know, in turn, I raised my
40:59
Speaker 1: so in ways, in very protective ways. So that's when
41:03
Speaker 1: we get into the whole, like motherhood comes in so
41:06
Speaker 1: many forms or care you know.
41:09
Speaker 3: Well, that lends itself to the theme of chosen family, yes,
41:13
Speaker 3: which we see constantly with so many relationship dynamics and
41:17
Speaker 3: kind of combinations of characters where you can presume that
41:23
Speaker 3: Agrotto and Lola were you know, as quote unquote outcasts
41:27
Speaker 3: of society, chose each other as family, and basically everyone
41:33
Speaker 3: that Manuela interacts with ends up being her chosen family.
41:36
Speaker 3: Between Agrotto and Rosa and Uma to some extent, it's
41:42
Speaker 3: a little different because she works for Uma, but they
41:44
Speaker 3: also develop a friendship and yeah, so yeah, it's just
41:48
Speaker 3: like chosen family across the board.
41:52
Speaker 1: Also, Ulma Uma in Spanish means smoke, and her name
41:57
Speaker 1: is Uma Rojo, which is red smoke. I'm so curious
42:01
Speaker 1: about interesting that and why. I mean, I'm sure we
42:04
Speaker 1: can find it online. I didn't. I was too lazy
42:08
Speaker 1: to look, but I wrote it down because I thought
42:11
Speaker 1: it was really cool.
42:12
Speaker 4: That's fascinating, I did. Yeah, I didn't even think to
42:15
Speaker 4: look into what the significance of the names were.
42:18
Speaker 1: Of the names totally.
42:20
Speaker 3: Well, then, speaking of names, you've got a Grotto who
42:23
Speaker 3: says several times in the movie that her name, which
42:28
Speaker 3: she chose, refers to the fact that she has spent
42:31
Speaker 3: her whole life trying to be agreeable for other people
42:34
Speaker 3: and trying to make other people's lives agreeable. And that's
42:39
Speaker 3: a clear component of her character, one that is very
42:43
Speaker 3: relatable for women. Yeah, that we're expected to just be
42:48
Speaker 3: accommodating and agreeable.
42:50
Speaker 1: Another caretaker in a different way, which brings back to
42:54
Speaker 1: the theme of caretaking. And it's I noticed that in
42:58
Speaker 1: the very I think it's the very last scene when
43:00
Speaker 1: Manuela comes back to see Uma at the theater and
43:05
Speaker 1: Nagarailo is there as her assistant. When Manuela walks in,
43:08
Speaker 1: she grabs UMA's earring and she's like, oh, it's not clasped.
43:14
Speaker 1: And Uma says something to her like she says it
43:17
Speaker 1: to Agdado, like she she knows how to take care
43:19
Speaker 1: of me, And Nagarilo looks at her and she's like, bitch,
43:23
Speaker 1: I've been fucking taking.
43:24
Speaker 4: Care of you for two years.
43:26
Speaker 1: Yes, And it like it's those little things that I'm
43:30
Speaker 1: like this writing. This isn't just a scene where people
43:34
Speaker 1: are blabbing about whatever, like.
43:36
Speaker 4: Right, I mean even in the characters that are not
43:39
Speaker 4: doing a great job at being a parent or just
43:43
Speaker 4: showing care, because I feel like that's the broader sort
43:46
Speaker 4: of thing that we're talking about. Is like I do
43:48
Speaker 4: believe every character in this movie is doing their best. Yes,
43:52
Speaker 4: and a lot of people's best is just like Rosa's mom,
43:56
Speaker 4: I think is a great example of that. I think
43:57
Speaker 4: that that's the best she can do. Yeah, and it's
44:00
Speaker 4: not good enough. And it's like, I that's why part
44:03
Speaker 4: of why I like, I just love how matter of
44:04
Speaker 4: fact Manuela is about being like, well, this isn't gonna work.
44:09
Speaker 4: It's not personal. I just like.
44:11
Speaker 5: It's the boundaries I need like yeah, like and it
44:14
Speaker 5: needs to be like what, yeah, is best for the
44:16
Speaker 5: baby and I just love I was I don't know,
44:20
Speaker 5: like stopping at the end of the movie.
44:22
Speaker 1: It's so intense.
44:24
Speaker 4: Where taking care of this baby is like a way
44:26
Speaker 4: to pay tribute to her own son and.
44:29
Speaker 3: Like, oh, the baby is a half brother to write
44:34
Speaker 3: saw nest upon.
44:35
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that like Lola. Her relationship with Lola is
44:40
Speaker 4: complicated and it's not like again, it's like it would
44:42
Speaker 4: have been the easy choice for it to be a
44:44
Speaker 4: big like I forgive you, no, I forgive you, no,
44:47
Speaker 4: I forgive you, But it's just sort of like it
44:50
Speaker 4: seems like they both accept like our relationship is always
44:53
Speaker 4: going to be complicated, but time is of the essence
44:55
Speaker 4: and yeah, you know, Lola deserved to know about her
45:01
Speaker 4: son and like oof, it's.
45:04
Speaker 1: Just beautiful to your point, did you both notice how
45:07
Speaker 1: there's a lot of repetition in the movie in terms
45:10
Speaker 1: of like, first what a stave on her son, Like
45:15
Speaker 1: it looks like he's going to get run over and
45:18
Speaker 1: he doesn't get run over, and then he does. And
45:22
Speaker 1: then she played this character. Manuela played this character when
45:26
Speaker 1: she was young, and she ends up playing the character again,
45:29
Speaker 1: and she loses a son and then she gains this
45:32
Speaker 1: other son. There's a lot of that. And I was
45:37
Speaker 1: also reading how a take on this movie is that
45:42
Speaker 1: this is the son wanted to be a writer, since
45:46
Speaker 1: you know when we meet him. And the take is
45:49
Speaker 1: that this is the story he wrote about his mother.
45:52
Speaker 1: He erased himself by you know, killing himself at the
45:56
Speaker 1: beginning or you know, and he is a narrator at
46:00
Speaker 1: times his voice comes back, so that this is basically
46:05
Speaker 1: like him recounting the story of his mother, and he
46:09
Speaker 1: fictionalized his death in order to create this And did
46:14
Speaker 1: you also sorry, I'm I know it isn't so amazing. Also,
46:19
Speaker 1: like another thing to that, and you notice at the
46:21
Speaker 1: very beginning of the movie, there's this crazy shot of
46:26
Speaker 1: her son writing down the title with his pencil, and
46:30
Speaker 1: it almost looks like it's just a shot from below
46:34
Speaker 1: the pencil and it's like he's writing.
46:36
Speaker 3: It's writing it on the camera lens.
46:39
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly, And that's crazy because it's just like whoa,
46:43
Speaker 1: he's writing the title of the movie, because then the
46:46
Speaker 1: title appears on the screen. So I just think, like God,
46:51
Speaker 1: the layers upon layers are so amazing.
46:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's that moment where they're watching All about Eve
46:59
Speaker 3: and the translation of the title from English to Spanish
47:03
Speaker 3: isn't like a direct translation, and he comments on that, yeah,
47:06
Speaker 3: like it should be like dorore Eve, and Manuela is like,
47:11
Speaker 3: that doesn't sound right, it doesn't work. But then the
47:15
Speaker 3: title of the movie in Spanish comes up and it's
47:16
Speaker 3: dot mi madre and you're just.
47:19
Speaker 4: Like, ah.
47:20
Speaker 1: Yeah. He also says that that part would you literally,
47:24
Speaker 1: would you prostitute yourself to save my life? And she says,
47:27
Speaker 1: I would do anything just for you. And then she's
47:31
Speaker 1: later confused for a sex worker, right, she poses as one,
47:36
Speaker 1: she poses as one.
47:37
Speaker 4: Yeah, and the fact that the first time that's presented,
47:40
Speaker 4: he's a sensitive teen but he's also such a teenager.
47:43
Speaker 4: He's like, I don't know, just his writing is both
47:47
Speaker 4: beautiful and melodramatic in the way the teenage writing is.
47:51
Speaker 4: Totally He felt very present through the whole movie, even
47:54
Speaker 4: that we only know him for five minutes.
47:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was, Yeah, and I'm curious. I did pay
48:00
Speaker 1: attention to whether his narration lasts the entire movie, but
48:06
Speaker 1: it's definitely there throughout it.
48:08
Speaker 3: Pops in and out.
48:09
Speaker 1: Yeah. Another thing that I wanted to ask you if
48:12
Speaker 1: you noticed where the time jumps in the movie are wild,
48:17
Speaker 1: like there's so many. Yeah, yes, which is another thing
48:21
Speaker 1: that sex would have been like too many, right right.
48:25
Speaker 3: Yeah. We used to get ahead like three weeks after
48:28
Speaker 3: her son's death, and then a couple more weeks once
48:32
Speaker 3: she arrives in Barcelona, and then there's a part where
48:35
Speaker 3: like two years past toward the.
48:37
Speaker 4: End, it is communicated. I mean like one of the
48:39
Speaker 4: time jumps is just communicated by Penelope Cruz is more pregnant,
48:44
Speaker 4: Like there's totally it's done pretty effortlessly, even though I know,
48:47
Speaker 4: I knowecs love to get there like underwear and a
48:49
Speaker 4: twist over it. But it's like if you just visually
48:51
Speaker 4: communicate it quickly, no problem, everyone's fine, you know, like
48:56
Speaker 4: everyone will be okay.
48:58
Speaker 1: Yeah. And that's why this is like piece of art
49:01
Speaker 1: to me. It's like not tainted, it's just straight from
49:05
Speaker 1: his beautiful brain.
49:08
Speaker 4: I love him so much, he's so great.
49:10
Speaker 3: Well, I was curious if there were any components of
49:14
Speaker 3: this story that were drawn from his life or that
49:19
Speaker 3: if it's like a kind of homage or I mean,
49:22
Speaker 3: I know he dedicates the movie to his mother at
49:25
Speaker 3: the end, but if he was like pulling anything from
49:27
Speaker 3: her experience, and it seems like not really, he just
49:32
Speaker 3: wanted to tell a thoughtful story about women and motherhood
49:37
Speaker 3: and caretaking and women's relationships and stuff. I read that.
49:44
Speaker 3: So he made an earlier movie from ninety five called
49:48
Speaker 3: The Flower of My Secret, where like student doctors are
49:53
Speaker 3: shown being trained on how to persuade relatives of people
49:59
Speaker 3: who have passed away to allow organs to be used
50:04
Speaker 3: for organ transplants. And he basically just like took that
50:08
Speaker 3: small piece, built the Manuela character around that, and then
50:15
Speaker 3: wroughte this entire other story, which was a huge critical
50:21
Speaker 3: and commercial success. It won awards, it can it won
50:26
Speaker 3: the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Golden Globes.
50:31
Speaker 3: Baftis all this kind of stuff, I think it's I
50:35
Speaker 3: don't know if this is still true, but it is
50:38
Speaker 3: the film from the Spanish motion picture industry, meaning like
50:44
Speaker 3: movies from Spain, not movies in Spanish. It is the
50:47
Speaker 3: one that has received more awards and honors than any
50:52
Speaker 3: other film that has come out of Spain.
50:54
Speaker 1: So good, yeah, it's it's it this movie. It is
51:00
Speaker 1: the one another like, aside from like the plot, the
51:05
Speaker 1: beauty in this movie, the colors, Like my husband was saying,
51:09
Speaker 1: like it looks like technic color. Yeah, and it's just
51:14
Speaker 1: like and the way Barcelona is depicted, just like it's
51:20
Speaker 1: just stunning.
51:21
Speaker 4: It's beautiful. It's so beautiful.
51:23
Speaker 1: I was gonna wear an Almodovar red shirt for this
51:26
Speaker 1: and I forgot so pretend like I'm wearing red.
51:30
Speaker 4: Spiritually all three of us are wearing red. Yeah, I'm
51:34
Speaker 4: so like. This made me want to be more complete
51:39
Speaker 4: in knowing his work because I just love I love
51:42
Speaker 4: when a director tries to explore a pretty specific theme
51:46
Speaker 4: from every angle possible and like you can see them
51:48
Speaker 4: grow yes with the It just it's because he was
51:51
Speaker 4: in his late forties or maybe fifty when this came out, too,
51:57
Speaker 4: and so I feel like there's I like it. I
51:58
Speaker 4: like that there's like a pretty wide diversity of age too.
52:02
Speaker 1: Oh god, yeah.
52:03
Speaker 4: There's mothers, but it's we have a new mother, but
52:07
Speaker 4: we also have you know, a mother in her late thirties,
52:10
Speaker 4: and you have Ros's mom. You know, like, how did
52:14
Speaker 4: he write this?
52:15
Speaker 1: I know?
52:17
Speaker 3: Something worth mentioning is the actors who play the trans characters.
52:23
Speaker 3: In this movie where a Grotto is played by an
52:29
Speaker 3: actor named Antonia san Juan, who I believe is a
52:34
Speaker 3: SIS woman. The research I did about this, here's what
52:37
Speaker 3: I found. There's a Guardian article from twenty twelve, so
52:43
Speaker 3: you know, quite old at this point, and you can
52:45
Speaker 3: tell from the title. It's entitled should trans screen roles
52:49
Speaker 3: be played by transactors?
52:51
Speaker 4: Oh, twenty twelve?
52:53
Speaker 3: Right, twenty twelve And this article briefly mentions this movie saying, quote,
53:00
Speaker 3: there may be stealth transactors if fear of being exposed
53:06
Speaker 3: does not daunt them parentheses. The speculation about Antonio san
53:11
Speaker 3: Juan after she played and then dated term here but
53:16
Speaker 3: transsexual a Grotto in Pedro Almodovar's All About My Mother
53:21
Speaker 3: was feverish, So I don't remember this happening at the time,
53:24
Speaker 3: but apparently after this movie came out.
53:27
Speaker 4: And it's like also fruitiful, like nobody's business. It's not, yeah,
53:32
Speaker 4: no one's business any That's the tricky. It's like having
53:35
Speaker 4: these conversations, especially like three SIS people. It's like we
53:38
Speaker 4: sound creepy, like people said, and I felt, yeah, I
53:42
Speaker 4: went through that as well, and just like the amount
53:45
Speaker 4: that she had to correct you know, like we've talked
53:49
Speaker 4: about on the show many times, that transactors should play
53:52
Speaker 4: trans characters. It makes sense. Yeah, and that conversation was,
53:56
Speaker 4: you know, still very much being had in twenty twelve.
53:59
Speaker 4: I wasn't surprised to see that this was the case
54:04
Speaker 4: in nineteen ninety nine. Unfortunately, Right, what I will say
54:07
Speaker 4: is just based on Alma Divar's work going forward, I
54:12
Speaker 4: don't think it would be a choice you would make now, right, agree, Yeah.
54:16
Speaker 3: And he does center queer characters quite a lot, he
54:20
Speaker 3: himself is a queer filmmaker. But yeah, I think he
54:23
Speaker 3: would take better care to cast transactors in trans roles.
54:28
Speaker 3: But again, the other trans character who we get to know, Lola,
54:33
Speaker 3: is played by an actor who is a CIS man.
54:37
Speaker 3: So again, things that were far more common in nineteen
54:41
Speaker 3: ninety nine, thankfully, far less common these days, but worth
54:47
Speaker 3: mentioning for sure.
54:49
Speaker 1: I wanted to recommend to adjacent works to this movie,
54:54
Speaker 1: and one is Veneno, which I mentioned previously. It's on
54:59
Speaker 1: HBO and it's a series. And another one is a
55:03
Speaker 1: book called Bad Girls. It's about a sex worker, a
55:07
Speaker 1: trans sex worker in Argentina. The writers at Argentine and
55:13
Speaker 1: trans Woman and it's so fucking beautiful. It's called Bad
55:18
Speaker 1: Girls and the writer's Camilla Sosa.
55:21
Speaker 4: Okay, it's going on the list.
55:24
Speaker 1: Good companion books and shows to this movie.
55:28
Speaker 3: I would also recommend A Fantastic Woman from twenty seventeen
55:33
Speaker 3: about a trans woman living in Chile.
55:37
Speaker 4: Love that I still haven't seen it.
55:40
Speaker 3: It's really going we should cover it on the show sometimes.
55:42
Speaker 4: Yeah, any other thoughts on this movie.
55:45
Speaker 1: I hope my IVF works and I can become a
55:48
Speaker 1: mother us too.
55:52
Speaker 4: I'm rooting for you.
55:53
Speaker 1: Thank you. I'm just announcing it in every podcast I
55:57
Speaker 1: go on. I'm like, I'm starting IVF, but it's it's like,
56:00
Speaker 1: well that's what I'm.
56:01
Speaker 4: Doing, starting IVS on the press tour. Baby, let's go.
56:05
Speaker 1: Yeah the worst. I'm traveling to New York to do
56:08
Speaker 1: my reading tomorrow and I'm going with like a thousand
56:12
Speaker 1: syringes and files of things.
56:16
Speaker 4: That's I mean, it's going to be a memorable trip.
56:18
Speaker 4: I can't. I'm so excited for you.
56:21
Speaker 1: Thank you and this. Watching this movie, like the day
56:24
Speaker 1: before I started was kind of crazy.
56:28
Speaker 4: It has to be. Yeah, like there couldn't be a
56:31
Speaker 4: more mother movie to exist.
56:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, It's like I want to take it as a
56:35
Speaker 1: sign that all is well, you know, like, but at
56:38
Speaker 1: the same time, I don't know. It was just it
56:40
Speaker 1: felt very I hate saying kismet, but it really did
56:43
Speaker 1: feel that way.
56:44
Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, I guess my final thought is just
56:49
Speaker 3: sort of like a conclusive. I appreciate that this movie
56:55
Speaker 3: takes such care to explore women of different ages and
57:01
Speaker 3: generations and sexualities and stations in life and personalities, and again,
57:08
Speaker 3: the relationships between them or among them are also interesting
57:16
Speaker 3: and authentic in a way that, again most movies don't
57:19
Speaker 3: bother to characterize at all. But that's what this entire
57:24
Speaker 3: movie is about. Men are largely absent from the story,
57:28
Speaker 3: and the ones who we do see, like you mentioned tomorrow,
57:31
Speaker 3: are usually being antagonistic toward women, which is again a
57:37
Speaker 3: very familiar experience for women. I did want to mention
57:41
Speaker 3: the monologue from a grotto talking about how much she
57:46
Speaker 3: hates drag queens and saying that they're sleazy also felt very,
57:52
Speaker 3: very dated for sure.
57:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, wait, what was that? I missed it?
57:56
Speaker 3: So it's when they go to see Rosa, right when
58:01
Speaker 3: we first meet that character, And I don't even know
58:04
Speaker 3: what prompts this Tirade exactly. But a Grotto is just
58:10
Speaker 3: saying that basically that she feels that drag queens kind
58:14
Speaker 3: of make a mockery of trans women. You would think
58:19
Speaker 3: there might be more solidarity between.
58:22
Speaker 4: Yeah, my assumption of where that was coming from was
58:25
Speaker 4: how frequently trans women and drag queens, especially the further
58:29
Speaker 4: back you go, were conflated with each other. And I
58:31
Speaker 4: was like, right, it's coming from a place of frustration,
58:34
Speaker 4: but that is not on drag queens.
58:36
Speaker 6: That's on society losers, right. But yeah, there's there's just
58:43
Speaker 6: so much to appreciate about this movie.
58:48
Speaker 4: Yeah, I do think like that the movie does a
58:50
Speaker 4: good job of sort of contextualizing like Lola doesn't get
58:54
Speaker 4: the chance to be a parent in the suviie and
58:58
Speaker 4: because I've I was also worried that like she was
59:01
Speaker 4: going to be made out to be like a deadbeat parent,
59:03
Speaker 4: but she just didn't know and that was a choice
59:07
Speaker 4: that was made. And it just made me want to
59:11
Speaker 4: see and hope that we get more movies about transparents.
59:15
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, because there's just like not a lot there
59:18
Speaker 4: is the show Transparent, but there's a lot of problems
59:21
Speaker 4: with that. I would love to just see if we're
59:25
Speaker 4: movies with transparents, maybe just don't even call attention to it,
59:29
Speaker 4: just like parents, you know.
59:31
Speaker 3: Right, Absolutely, the movie does pass the Bechdel test.
59:36
Speaker 4: Practically the whole time, and like except where they're talking
59:39
Speaker 4: about various estebands.
59:44
Speaker 3: Right or talking to doctors who are being awful.
59:48
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
59:51
Speaker 3: As far as our nipple scale goes, where we rate
59:54
Speaker 3: the movie zero to five nipples examining it through an
59:57
Speaker 3: intersectional feminist len yes, I mean this movie gets high marks,
1:00:05
Speaker 3: like four four and a half. It's a rare movie
1:00:09
Speaker 3: that performs well on our show. I would take a
1:00:13
Speaker 3: little bit away from just the actor's cast to play
1:00:18
Speaker 3: the trans characters being sis actors. Otherwise, it's just such
1:00:26
Speaker 3: a beautiful depiction of women and their interior lives and
1:00:32
Speaker 3: their relationships with other women, some of which we see
1:00:36
Speaker 3: are very positive and uplifting, some of which are far
1:00:39
Speaker 3: more complicated. Well, I guess all the relationships are complicated,
1:00:43
Speaker 3: but some are not so positive. But there's just like
1:00:46
Speaker 3: so much nuance and authenticity to everything we see. That Again,
1:00:51
Speaker 3: most movies are like, there's one one woman, and of
1:00:55
Speaker 3: course she's a mother because that's what women are. Whereas
1:00:59
Speaker 3: this movie is like, yes, some women are mothers and
1:01:03
Speaker 3: let's explore that thoughtfully. So it's just really well done.
1:01:09
Speaker 3: And I'll give it four and a half nipples and
1:01:12
Speaker 3: I'll distribute them among all the women in the cast.
1:01:18
Speaker 3: Plus so Peak the Dog, oh so Peak incredible. Yeah,
1:01:25
Speaker 3: I'll go four and a half as well. I just
1:01:27
Speaker 3: think this is a beautiful, thoughtful movie.
1:01:30
Speaker 4: Yeah. I would love to know what our trends listeners
1:01:33
Speaker 4: think about it as well. But I was just like, so,
1:01:38
Speaker 4: I didn't know anything going into this movie, and boy,
1:01:42
Speaker 4: it puts you through it in a good way, but
1:01:45
Speaker 4: it puts you through it and I feel like, really
1:01:49
Speaker 4: effortlessly avoids all of these like stereotypes of mothers that
1:01:55
Speaker 4: he does so well. So I'm gonna give it four
1:01:57
Speaker 4: and a half nipples. I will, Yeah, I guess I'm
1:02:00
Speaker 4: going to I don't know. I mean, I love a
1:02:02
Speaker 4: grotto so much. Two to a grotto because that's just
1:02:07
Speaker 4: me nepotisming my favorite character. I will give one to Manmoila.
1:02:13
Speaker 4: I'll give one to Petro Amozovar himself because he really
1:02:19
Speaker 4: he really killed this one. And I'll give the half
1:02:22
Speaker 4: to baby Esteban.
1:02:26
Speaker 3: Exase tomorrow how about you.
1:02:29
Speaker 1: You know, I was gonna say four and a half
1:02:30
Speaker 1: nipples two, but then I thought, I'm going to add
1:02:33
Speaker 1: the half and give it a five nipples.
1:02:36
Speaker 4: Because it's your favorite movie.
1:02:38
Speaker 1: Yes, and because the fact that it came out in
1:02:41
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety nine. I'm just it's we haven't even today,
1:02:48
Speaker 1: like reached themes like this in whatever year it is. Now,
1:02:53
Speaker 1: like there's two trans women in the movie, like now
1:02:57
Speaker 1: I'm working on TV too, where it's like there can
1:02:59
Speaker 1: be the one character mate, Like it's unheard of. So
1:03:03
Speaker 1: for that reason, I give it the full nip and
1:03:08
Speaker 1: I'm going to give them all to Manuela because that
1:03:12
Speaker 1: performance by Cecilia Roth is a dream come true.
1:03:16
Speaker 4: Incredible, so beautiful.
1:03:18
Speaker 1: And because her character is the goddess caretaker and yeah.
1:03:24
Speaker 3: Wonderful, amazing. Thank you so much for bringing us to
1:03:27
Speaker 3: this movie and chatting about it with us.
1:03:30
Speaker 4: I think probably from episode to episode the wildest genre
1:03:35
Speaker 4: John we've made with a single guest in the history
1:03:37
Speaker 4: of this show, Home Alone and All About My Mother, Like, yeah,
1:03:42
Speaker 4: it's basically the same movie, two important films.
1:03:45
Speaker 1: Oh my god, it's so funny. I remember that the
1:03:47
Speaker 1: one we did it was also like late on a
1:03:50
Speaker 1: Saturday night and we were like drinking wine and the
1:03:52
Speaker 1: vibe was just completely Now I'm like.
1:03:55
Speaker 3: It was a live show too.
1:03:57
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I.
1:03:59
Speaker 1: Was like, oh this is it has to be funny.
1:04:01
Speaker 4: We've we all grew up.
1:04:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. Well, thank you so much for.
1:04:06
Speaker 4: Having me, or thank you for coming back on come
1:04:10
Speaker 4: back anytime, surprise us again with a completely different movie. Yes,
1:04:14
Speaker 4: and congratulations on your book. Where can we buy it?
1:04:17
Speaker 4: Where can we follow you?
1:04:19
Speaker 1: It is available anywhere you buy books. I like to
1:04:22
Speaker 1: not buy it from Amazon if possible, but do what
1:04:26
Speaker 1: you must. And it's available for as an audiobook narrated
1:04:30
Speaker 1: by me, and I cry like twenty times during the narration,
1:04:34
Speaker 1: so that's kind of fun. And you can follow me
1:04:39
Speaker 1: on Instagram. I am tomorrow, Yeahiah, that's spelled tomorrow y
1:04:45
Speaker 1: a Jia.
1:04:46
Speaker 3: You can follow us on Instagram as well. At Bechdelcast.
1:04:50
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1:04:56
Speaker 3: release two episodes per month focusing on a brilliant theme,
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1:05:05
Speaker 3: slash Bechdel Cast.
1:05:07
Speaker 4: And with that, let's go walk Roses Dog.
1:05:12
Speaker 6: Yes, let's a bye Bye Bye.
1:05:20
Speaker 3: The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by
1:05:23
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1:05:27
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