Fridae

Gay men have always proven to be good directors of women's movies. From the late-and-great George Cukor (The Women), Douglas Sirk (All That Heaven Allows) and Rainer Werner Fassbinder (The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant), to gifted contemporary filmmakers such as Francois Ozon (8 Women), Stephen Daldry (The Hours), Todd Haynes (Far From Heaven) and Rob Marshall (Memoirs of a Geisha), gay men have excelled in depicting women's plights and concerns.

Heck, even the creators of TV's Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives are fags.

But among all the living gay directors, none is better than Spain's cinematic treasure Pedro Almodovar. His earlier works (like Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! and Matador) were bawdy, wildly irreverent pictures that combined camp, comedy, melodrama and even pornography. Maturing as an artist, his later films such as All about My Mother and Talk to Her became warm, compassionate, psychologically astute films dealing with human relationships.

His latest film, Volver, is a beautiful all-women affair that celebrates femininity and female solidarity. It stars Penelope Cruz (who was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar, but lost to Helen Mirren) as a cleaner struggling to support her useless husband and teenage daughter. One night, she comes home from work to find her husband dead in the kitchen. Their daughter had stabbed him after he tried to rape her.

Instead of calling the police, Penelope's first instinct is protect her daughter. She tells her child that whatever happens, she � Penelope � will take the blame for the murder. The women then drag the body to a vacant restaurant nearby to hide it in the freezer. But that is not the end of their troubles. The ghost of Penelope's mother has apparently returned from dead to reveal a dark secret about the past, a secret that would shake Penelope's world once again...

Volver has touches of light camp and the supernatural, but it is essentially a funny, beautiful and moving film about mother/daughter relationships and how far a mother is willing to go to show her love for her child. Penelope Cruz's radiant vibrant and sexy performance is her best ever, and it's no wonder that she got the nomination for Best Actress. Volver is a must-see.