‘Ghosts don’t cry’: state of exception and the mother(land) in Pedro Almodóvar’s Live Flesh (1997) and Volver (2006)

Abstract

ABSTRACT Volver and Live Flesh present the contradictions inherent in celebrating assertive motherhood through the ‘costumbrista’ tradition that Almodóvar has adapted and adopted throughout his career. Nostalgic yearning for a ‘return’ to the mother(land) is filtered in these films through a view of women projected through casting, costume, as well as the segregation of cinematic space. This results in a projection of exteriors as the masculine domain and assigning women largely to interiors, as in melodrama. Howe