GalleryFilm September Screening – Almodovar's Volver

Monday 21 September at 7.15 for 7.45 pm at Dulwich Picture Gallery

Includes free food and wine and more, see below

Pedro Almodovar's award winning film

Starring Penelope Cruz, Carmen Maura and Lola Duenas, 121 minutes Cert 15

“A touching, beautifully plotted film, full of memorable images and jokes, it zips along without a wasted second in its 121 minutes.”

Synopsis: Raimunda (Penelope Cruz) and Sole (short for Soledad, “loneliness”) (Lola Duenas) are sisters who grew up in a small village in La Mancha but now both live in Madrid. Their parents died in a tragic fire a few years prior to the beginning of the film. The events which occurred on the night of the fire are only gradually revealed, but are central to the plot.

Sole returns to the village for the funeral of her elderly Aunt Paula (chus Lampreave). Aunt Paula’s neighbor Agustina (blanca Portillo), confesses to Sole that she has heard Paula talking to the ghost of Sole’s mother Irene (Carmen Maura). Sole encounters the ghost herself, and when she returns to Madrid, she discovers that the ghost has stowed away in the trunk of her car. She has brought luggage and intends to stay with Sole for a while.

Roger Ebert – Chicago Sun Times “What is most unexpected about “Volver” is that it’s not really about murder or the afterlife, but simply incorporates those awkward developments into the problems of daily living. His characters approach their dilemmas not with metaphysics but with common sense. A dead woman turns up as a ghost and is immediately absorbed into her family’s ongoing problems: So what took her so long”?

“It is refreshing to see Cruz acting in the culture and language that is her own. As it did with Sophia Loren in the 1950s, Hollywood has tried to force Cruz into a series of show-biz categories, when she is obviously most at home playing a woman like the ones she knew, grew up with, could have become”.

“For Almodovar, too, “Volver” is like a homecoming. Whenever we are most at ease, we fall most easily and gracefully into our native idioms. Certainly as a young gay man in Franco’s Spain, he didn’t feel at home, but he felt displaced in a familiar way, and now he feels nostalgia for the women who accepted him as easily as if, well, he had been a ghost”.

?Includes wine and canapes kindly donated by Number 22 bar & restaurant on Half Moon Lane, Herne Hill
?A free prize draw for a bottle of fine Sherry, kindly donated by Number 22
?Film notes and an introduction to the film
?DVD sales table (bring along your unwanted ones and sell them to support the Gallery – £5)
?Join the team afterwards at the Crown and Greyhound to continue the evening

All this for £8 or £6 if you are a Friend of Dulwich Picture Gallery or a GalleryFilm facebook member.
Join GalleryFilm facebook group

Bar opens 7.15pm, programme begins 7.45pm in the Linbury Room

Tickets 020 8299 8750