Hi! I'm writing a paper for my Spanish Cinema class and, after having watched the movie three times this week, I got the feeling that Manuela and the blonde from the beginning were maybe more than friends (particularly when Manuela shouts at her in the kitchen). Did anyone catch that? Or was it just me?
Thanks,
Angie
That wasn't the impression I got from watching that particular scene... I haven't watched the whole film yet (we're watching it in Film Studies). wasn't the blonde her boss? Hmmm. I don't know. I'll update you when I've seen the rest of the film and seen if my opinion changes!
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*~ "What about second breakfast?" ~*
Ah, a hobbit after my own heart! :)
I don't know for sure but i thoght it was her sister...
sharei own several of Almodovars' films and this is one of my favorites. on the dvd he does a little interview and of the main charcters only Huma and Nina are lesbians. Manuela pretty much admits that she's bisexual when she telling her story in the hospital to Rosa and say's something about women being a little bi. as for the blonde in the beginning that is her boss and i just take it that they are friends outside of work.
shareCool. Thanks!
share
I don't think so, although she tells the non "we are kind of lesbians", because they slept with a man who is a woman.
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Ok, this has made me curious... What exact line are you talking about??? It must be translation error, because (and I have seen this film MANY times -and am a Spanish speaker) I don't remember Manuela to ever have called herself a "kind of lesbian"....
shareShe doesn't say lesbian per se in Spanish. Manuela says that "las mujeres somos un poco bolleras". You should know what they mean by bolleras. However, the English subtitles say "lesbos".
shareIt was translated a 'lesbian' and she says it so matter-of-factly.
I wonder who is straight in the film and how they are depicted. I suspect Esteban, Manuela's son who was killed, was gay and that relationship seemed almost incestuous. Rosa's mother is a block of ice and her father is only interested in a woman's age and her height-- of course, he suffers from dementia.
Rosa dies in childbirth because she was HIV-infected, did she bleed to death? I missed something there. Almadovar clearly loves women and actresses and recognizes their depth and how three-dimensional they are, especially in a very Latin culture, which imposes great restrictions on acceptable male behavior.
Give thanks for a little and you will find a lot.
esteban is one of Almodovar's best self-representations. almost how i would envision the man himself if he were that age. he even says many of the things he would have as a teenager
shareShe has High blood pressure and Hyper tension which is why she is on bed rest and told not to do anything strenuous or stressful while she is pregnant.
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I'm agree with you when you say that she said it because Lola is a man converted in a woman when they were going out. About Manuela, is an extract of a little character of another Almodovar's of 1995, "La flor de mi secreto", a character who onlyy appears three or five minutes. He wanted to make a movie where the main character would be Manuela, and here it is. But I don't think that she's bisexual or lesbian, just my opinion.
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Not, she is not lesbian, she just fed up with men, but she is not lesbian
sharei def. sensed a bit of lesbianism but no so much between Manuela and the blonde but between Manuela and Rosa. And even if Manuela is not a lesbian, she is def. bi. She even mentions something about women being a little lesbian to Rosa.
shareManuela plays the mother figure Rosa doesn't have from her own mother. She does say to her that women are all a little gay, but that is in response to them talking about the fathers of their children. She's referencing the fact that both of them got pregnany by transvestite men. Neither Manuela nor Rosa is gay. In a previous post someone wrote that they suspected Esteban to be gay and oedipal. There's nothing in the movie to suggest that he's homosexual or that he has an alternate relationship with his mother. All that is apparent through his short appearence is that he love his mother as any normal son does.
shareI believe the movie did show that the son wanted an alternate relationship with his mother. No gay tendencies at all, though. You could sense a desire from the son through his intense interest in his mother; writing about her (which made her uncomfortable,) interest in her amateur acting photo, and body language on the sofa and at the theater. I also believe that the mother didn't do much to discourage it. She wouldn't act on it, but didn't seem to find it too troublesome, possibly flattering. Just my impressions.
She is not a lesbian; she is open-minded, and that's good.
shareI think as with all of Pedro Almodovar's movies, this one has a deliberately very queer (in the Judith Butler sense) ideology. I think all of his movies are about subversion, subversion of expectations and subversion of the morals and trappings that society imposes, such as in an earlier movie where rape and murder are trivialised. This also applies equally to All About My Mother, I don't think Almodovar makes a movie that concerns itself with whether someone is 'gay' or 'straight' or 'bisexual' or even a man or a woman. The movie, I think, transcends these barriers that we, as humans, put up for ourselves to focus solely on the all-identifying things in life, like these women's emotional crises and the position of a mother (everyone has one).
sharei THINK SHE IS sort of bi, I mean, why else would she have slept with a trannie ? lol
shareHaving briefly gone through this thread i don't think anyone has mentioned when Manuela was washing Rosa the camera lingered for far too long on Rosa's body and Manuela rubbing her with the cloth. At that point i began to think Manuela had some feelings for Rosa, i mean she didn't want to take her in anyway but Rosa persuaded her to.
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