Loving Pedro

CTERESA ISASI--SONY
'All About My Mother': Almodovar's best movie yet

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Almodovar can wax eloquently and congenially on any subject. But if you want to get this bachelor auteur steamed, try asking snoopy questions about his private life. "I don't want to be rude talking about America," he says, "because you treat me very well, and I have to say thank you every day. But in Spain nobody would dare ask artists about their sexuality during an interview." (P.S.: we didn't ask, not really.) To Almodovar, aside from its indelicacy, such a question is limiting; it suggests, for instance, that gay directors can make only gay films. "I know there's a difference in gay and heterosexual sensibilities, but I don't divide things, and above all I don't divide films in terms of their directors' sexual orientation. It's like saying Orson Welles could only make fat movies. It's a joke; it doesn't matter. What am I? I'm what you see."

But he is also, as Agrado, the transsexual in Mother, would say, what he dreams. Almodovar dreams of humanity as a band of madwomen looking for good men and great women looking to do without. When he dreams a film as rich and wrenching as his Mother, the world's movie dreams can come true.