Mariella Gattini

Julieta, the latest film by Pedro Almodóvar, is based on three short stories from the book Runaway by Alice Munro. It is an extraordinary exploration of women’s inner struggle between who they really are and the heavy obligations they carry with them—obligations that can consume their lives in their entirety.

This movie is also an accomplishment from the cultural and gender points of view, since Alice Munro is Canadian and a woman. Almodóvar successfully adapted the story not only from the written word to pure image, but also from a Canadian set of mind into a Spanish one. The cultural transference is seamless.

There is an unspoken language between women that is universal. It translates into insecurity, anguish, and the drowning of the soul. And yet, we are stronger than any man when it comes to real life and hardship.

Relationships between women are determined by the connections that first come naturally to us, and go essentially from mothers to daughters. No matter how much love there is between them, there is also a breach that grows over time, since a mother and a daughter are two distinctive individuals. Therefore, their different expectations take them in different directions, yielding different outcomes.

This film leads us to a clear understanding of the deep despair women suffer when the link they have with their own mothers or daughters gets damaged by life. This despair can inundate your chest, and compress it with such lack of mercy that it does not allow breathing. The love is still there, but looks just like a bystander—useless and cold.

Going forward in this case seems like a monumental task, questions everything you are, and clouds your judgement at every step. That’s the life of everyday women, even the ones who look most shallow. The superficial part of their lives allows them to survive an otherwise dreary existence. They talk about shoes, hair, fashion, so that life seems more surmountable. They gossip about the latest news and seem most impervious to the reality of their time, but the truth goes beneath the surface, a truth that drains them at every second.

Not every woman is the same, of course, and there are those who appear not to be affected by their environment. Nevertheless, the more they live, the more they are susceptible to be touched by life, painfully. And the most profound damage is intimate, personal, inward.

The easiest reaction would be to blame somebody in this mother-daughter dynamic. The hard side is to come to the realization that as long as there is life, there is opportunity for misunderstanding, heartache, and despair.

Julieta is the perfect example of how a woman can get overwhelmingly consumed by a relationship she no longer has with her daughter, of how this lack of connection puts into doubt everything she is and overpowers every minute of her existence.

Her daughter is not longer around, but she still is her mother—an inescapable truth. There is no easy answer when it comes to overcoming adversity of the most intimate kind—we all have different ways to cope with pain and disillusion—but for everyone the unresolved issue remains constant in the back of the mind, behind the scenes, lingering, ruminating, until is no more, but leaving unforgotten vestiges deep inside.

Julieta manages to go on with her life, like we always do—with a deeper understanding of who we are, and the love we have inside. A love that, after all, becomes whole again.