Dancing Through Trauma in Pedro Almodóvar's Volver

Letras Hispanas Volume 15

Title: Dancing through Trauma in Pedro Almodóvar’s Volver Author: Michelle Hulme-Lippert Email: [email protected] Affiliation: Randolph-Macon College; Department of Modern Languages; Haley Hall 10; 114 College Avenue; Ashland VA 23005 Abstract: This essay examines Pedro Almodóvar’s Volver in light of present-day memory politics in Spain, positing the film to advocate affective confrontations with the past in contrast to Spain’s limited transitional justice politics and 2007 Ley de Memoria Histórica. The protagonist’s cathartic cante jondo gives language to fourteen years of silenced pain and trauma and sets into motion a healing materialization of specters. These dance-like acts of embodiment restore originary mother-daughter relationships and—in accordance with Elaine Scarry’s The Body in Pain—participate in making the world. However, questions arise regarding the sustainability of the film’s graceful, fluid, and complete forms of restitution, particularly when we take into account the returns of rape and patriarchal violence in Almodóvar’s later films. Ultimately, Volver’s unsilencing of the past is argued not to bring an end to its violence and trauma, but to be one step in the long-term, disruption-full work of bearing witness to cultural trauma. Keywords: Pedro Almodóvar, Volver, Trauma, Historical Memory, Historical Memory Law, Flamenco, Franco Resumen: Este artículo analiza la relación entre la película Volver de Pedro Almodóvar y la limitada Ley de Memoria Histórica española, arguyendo que Volver aboga por una rehabi- litación afectiva de los traumas del pasado. El cante hondo catártico de la protagonista da voz a catorce años de dolor y trauma silenciados y también pone en marcha una materia- lización curativa de espectros. Estos procesos íntimos de encarnación poseen un carácter danzante que se encarga de restaurar relaciones originarias entre madres e hijas, partici- pando así—según Elaine Scarry—en la creación del mundo. Sin embargo, surgen preguntas sobre la sostenibilidad de las formas gráciles, fluidas y completas de restitución deVolver , especialmente cuando tomamos en cuenta los regresos de violaciones y violencia patriarcal en películas almodóvarianas posteriores. Al final, el ensayo arguye que, enVolver , los en- frentamientos con el pasado no resuelven su violencia ni su trauma, pero sí son un paso en el largo y difícil trabajo de dar testimonio al trauma cultural. Palabras clave: Pedro Almodóvar, Volver, trauma, memoria histórica, Ley de Memoria Histó- rica, flamenco, Franco Date Received: 6/30/2017 Date Published: 3/14/2019 Biography: Michelle Hulme-Lippert is Visiting Assistant Professor of Spanish at Randolph- Macon College. She received her PhD in Spanish with a specialization in Latin American literary and cultural studies from Emory University in 2015. Her current research focuses on memory, human rights, and social movements in contemporary Hispanic literature and film.

ISSN: 1548-5633 6 Letras Hispanas Volume 15

Dancing through Trauma in Pedro Almodóvar’s Volver

Michelle Hulme-Lippert, Randolph-Macon College

In a talk Pedro Almodóvar gave at the regime. These victims’ family members have British Film Institute in January 2015, the di- demanded justice for those they have lost and rector reflected upon what he considered his are still waiting for answers. The one-minute films’ lack of engagement with Spain’s recent long stories, narrated in the first person, be- past of civil war and Francisco Franco’s dic- gin with Almodóvar’s interpretation of Vir- tatorship. Almodóvar explained that his films gilio Leret Ruiz, the pilot known as the first have heretofore been representative of the officer to be killed in the Spanish Civil War democratic era in which he grew up, result- when he refused to join his unit in turning ing in an absence of references to Francoism, on the Republic in support of Franco. The much in line with the director’s often-cited documentary was presented in Madrid by the desire to create his films—particularly ear- Asociación para la Recuperación de Memo- lier ones emblematic of the 1980s movida ria Histórica (ARMH), an NGO founded in madrileña—“como si Franco no hubiera exis- 2000 to assist families in finding the remains tido” (Strauss 31). However, Almodóvar went of their loved ones and the organization that on to communicate that his feelings towards first brought significant political attention to representing this part of Spain’s past with his the need for the location, exhumation, and cinema have shifted significantly, resulting in dignified burials of the victims of Spain’s re- his becoming more and more “preocupado cent past. con la memoria histórica, con esa parte del Despite Almodóvar’s claims that his Franquismo que no ha desaparecido de la concerns with historical memory are recent, vida y sociedad españolas,” even leading him this article contends that his films are already to desire to create a film related to “los ciento involved in recuperating Spain’s recent past y pico mil asesinados que todavía permane- and helping victims work through cultural cen donde fueron enterrados, en cualquier trauma, a concept which is understood here zanja” (qtd. in Gómez). as what The emotive anger with which Al- modóvar was reported to speak of the still- occurs when members of a collectiv- missing remains of thousands of individuals ity feel they have been subjected to a buried in mass graves is in keeping with sev- horrendous event that leaves indelible eral related statements the director has made marks upon their group conscious- in recent years in which he has expressed deep ness, marking their memories forever sympathy for victims’ families and strongly and changing their future identity in criticized the government for its lack of assis- fundamental and irrevocable ways. tance in helping these families locate bodily (Alexander I)1 remains and seek justice. Almodóvar’s concerns with missing bodies and this traumatic However, the memory work of these films past are particularly evident in his participa- differs from the type of film Almodóvar has tion in “Cultura contra la impunidad” (2010), recently proposed in that they represent the a fifteen-minute documentary in which fa- Francoist past in a more symbolic fashion. mous actors and artists interpret the role of Rather than speak directly to issues of jus- victims of the Spanish Civil War or Franco’s tice and restoration, these films engage in a Michelle Hulme-Lippert 7 suggestive illustration of the past, which ap- a simple and healable event, but proximates what Jo Labanyi has described as rather an event […] not available to an “aesthetics of haunting” in which specters consciousness until it imposes itself from a past with “unfinished business” re- again, repeatedly, in the nightmares main in the present, stressing “the legacy of and repetitive actions of the survivor. the past to the present: a legacy which—as in (4) most ghost stories—is one of injustice requir- ing reparation” (113). It is a devastation that resists “simple compre- The temporal location of Almodóvar’s hension” and haunts the victim with “not only films in the democratic present, then, does not the reality of the violent event but also the real- preclude the persistence of specters from the ity of the way its violence has not yet been fully Francoist past. This is particularly true in the known” (Caruth 6). However, through her vo- director’s 2006 Volver, in which, in accordance cal performance of “Volver” midway through with Jacques Derrida’s articulation of spectral- the film, Raimunda begins to find language ity, the film’s characters “livewith ghosts, in the with which to unsilence and share this past. upkeep, the conversation, the company, or the This “rebirth of language” gives expression to companionship” of ghosts, or “others who are that which had been unspeakable, thereby set- not present, nor presently living, either to us, in ting into motion healing acts of “materializa- us, or outside us” (xviii). Volver is in fact full of tion, or the embodying” of spectral presences disembodied, spectral presences that linger, re- (Scarry 172, 276). By transforming those minding characters of painful pasts and indicat- painfully missing into physically present bod- ing the need for restoration and proper burials. ies and interring the haunting specters of pa- Among these presences is mother and grand- triarchal violence in order to protect future mother Irene (Carmen Maura), presumed to generations, these acts initiate the restoration have died in a fire nearly four years prior to the of originary relationships, thereby “making film’s present, whose re-apparition is initially as- the world” in a way that echoes Almodóvar’s sumed to be phantasmatic until eventually be- concerns with Spain’s pained and missing ing understood as fully corporal. A second such bodies (Scarry 23). presence is the husband of protagonist Raimun- This article proposes thatVolver ’s sus- da (Penélope Cruz), Paco (Antonio de la Torre), tained emphasis on these acts of embodiment who spends much of the film as a corpse in a can be imagined as a cathartic dance that ac- deep freezer after being killed by his daughter companies Raimunda’s cante jondo of “Volv- Paula (Yohana Cobo), who defends herself from er.” To be clear, there is no literal dancer or his attempts to rape her. flamenco dancing in this scene or in the film; Drawing on Elaine Scarry’s The Body in but, as I will demonstrate, Volver’s graceful Pain, this article argues that Volver’s disem- handling of bodies and specters helps charac- bodied specters originate from an act of vio- ters confront past violence, find justice, offer lence that caused nearly unspeakable bodily dignified burials, and repair broken relation- pain: Raimunda’s rape by her father fourteen ships. The healing brought about by these years prior, which resulted in the birth of her embodiment processes approximates the ca- daughter, Paula. This act of violence severed tharsis found in baile jondo in which “body Raimunda’s originary relationship with her and earth are joined,” with the dancer experi- mother, whose obliviousness to Raimunda’s encing deep rootedness (Claus 95). However, pain “unmade” their relationship, following while proper burials and the materialization of Scarry’s argument that intense pain “destroys specters within Volver approximate baile jon- a person’s self and world” (35). In keeping do’s catharsis, they also maintain an uplifting, with Cathy Caruth’s work, the trauma Rai- gravity-defying form, rather than the intense, munda experiences from this violence is not abrupt, and downward-oriented movements 8 Letras Hispanas Volume 15 of baile jondo. Likewise, the gentleness with attempted repetition of this unpunished crime which the film treats stories of rape, murder, in the present to function as an allegory of the and shattered relationships does not align persisting trauma of Spain’s Francoist past with trauma theorists’ articulations of the dis- (qtd. in Harguindey). This trauma endures continuities, disruptions, and difficulties that in the present following the 1977 Ley de am- are inevitable in processes of recovery. Addi- nistía and broader societal pacto del silencio, tionally, Volver does not rely on the incoher- or political “institutionalized oblivion”—part ent fragmentation Janet Walker describes as of what Cristina Moreiras Menor describes as characteristic of trauma cinema.2 Ultimately, a broader cultural process of desmemoria— I argue, a more characteristic form of baile which have prohibited transitional justice jondo in which body and earth unite can be politics, standing in stark contrast to the dem- encountered across the series of Almodóvar’s ocratic transitions in much of Latin America films that includesVolver and the films that and parts of Africa, Asia, and Europe (Resina, follow, which more fully demonstrate long- “The Weight of Memory” 226).3 term, nonlinear processes of dealing with pa- With its moving embodiment that triarchal violence and trauma. The long-term unsilences a traumatic past, Volver artisti- commitment of these films to giving creative cally participates in the prevalent and in- expression to nearly unspeakable pain and tense debates taking place during the film’s comprehension-resisting trauma thus con- production regarding the Ley de Memoria tributes to achieving the catharsis found in Histórica and “recuperation of historical baile jondo when the body joins the earth, en- memory.”4 This giving language and ex- abling a painful past to be interred once and pression to trauma in order to restore and for all. remake that which has been destroyed calls The journey from trauma to embodi- global audiences to engage in an “ethics ment happens most explicitly on a personal of listening and seeing” in which “specta- level for Raimunda, but it is also a collective tors become conscious of our position of experience, not only for the other characters responsibility. We bear witness to the oth- within the film impacted by the embodiment ers’ experiences via the cinematic medium” of specters, but also for the film’s national (Gutiérrez-Albilla, Aesthetics, Ethics and (and transnational, as will later be explored) Trauma 29). This act of witnessing further- audience. As Julián Daniel Gutiérrez-Albilla’s more has the potential to provide a sense recent book argues, Volver can be understood of not-aloneness not only for those giving to uncover testimony, but also for spectators who iden- tify with Raimunda’s traumatic experienc- individual and shared traumatic es, sensing that they too “are not alone any memories and experiences in a sug- longer” (Laub 91-92). In viewing Volver, gestive and oblique manner, which these spectators may discover forces the spectator to establish connections between the text and the na- the story of the way in which one’s tional context. (Aesthetics, Ethics and own trauma is tied with the trauma Trauma 46) of another, the way in which trauma may lead, therefore, to the encoun- Following this and taking into account Al- ter with another, through the very modóvar’s aforementioned desire to create possibility and surprise of listening therapeutic cinema for all affected by what he to another’s wound, has termed “el holocausto franquista,” we can interpret the past rape of protagonist Raimun- which might indeed contribute to the re- da by her father, her silent survival, and the making of the world (Caruth 8). Michelle Hulme-Lippert 9

Seeking baile jondo preceding this scene, Raimunda admits to Paula that Paco was not in fact her biological The importance of a proper, dignified father and promises to tell her one day who burial is identified withinVolver ’s very first her father was, beginning to un-silence her scene in which women dutifully care for the past and Paula’s origin story for the first time. tombstones of those they have lost in dance- This act of bearing witness continues to unlike rhythm to the upbeat tune of the zar- fold in Raimunda’s vocal performance at the zuela “La rosa del azafrán” and the moving party she hosts for a film crew. The strum- presence of the Solano wind. The many fresh ming of the guitars by the band prompts Rai- flowers placed on the grave markers and the munda to begin reciting the song her mother attention to detail in cleaning the tombstones, once taught her to sing for children’s singing even fervently polishing the engraved letters competitions. Sole and Raimunda reminisce despite the continual blowing up of dust, sug- about those recitals, and Paula interjects that gest the essential nature of burial sites and she has never once heard her mother sing. acts of honoring those who have passed. This Raimunda’s look of astonishment and regret sentiment is furthered by Agustina (Blanca as she hears her daughter say this indicates Portillo), the childhood friend of Raimunda the weight of this silenced part of Raimunda’s and her sister Sole (Lola Dueñas), who is at past, prompting her to perform the song with the cemetery to care for her own eventual the band. resting place. Agustina talks of how she finds This performance’s advocacy of giving great peace in spending hours by her future voice to long-repressed trauma is clearly sig- grave, to the initial discomfort of teenager naled by Raimunda’s opening remark regard- Paula. Paula has grown up in Madrid, geo- ing the “mucho tiempo” during which she has graphically near—but culturally worlds apart not sung, a period demarcated by the pain- from—the Manchegan village of origin of her ful estrangement between Raimunda and her mother and aunt, where Agustina still lives mother. In the years that have followed her and this scene takes place. As they leave, Rai- rape, Raimunda has not spoken of her trau- munda explains to a puzzled Paula this rural matic experiences, which points to bodily tradition of caring for one’s grave before pass- pain’s “ability to destroy language, the power ing as if it were a home. From this assertion of verbal objectification, a major source of we might surmise that not burying bodies in our self-extension, a vehicle through which an intimate and affective manner is to leave the pain could be lifted out into the world” the spirits homeless, wandering spectral pres- (Scarry 54). However, Raimunda begins to ences like the ones we will soon encounter recognize the importance of breaking this within the film. In light of Scarry’s work, silence following the re-occurrence of pater- these wandering spirits whose materiality has nal violence within her own family, which yet to be discovered can be considered mate- threatens to continue destroying originary rially unrepresented, thus having “no limits” mother-daughter relationships and unmak- with respect to their “extension out into the ing the world. Through her commanding world” (207). The resulting omnipresence performance of “Volver,” Raimunda finds of missing bodies and disembodied specters language with which to express this past, be- creates a deep sense of unrest to which Volver ginning to materialize her experience into gives artistic expression and ultimately begins something containable. In this way, Raimun- the process of restoring. da’s performance can be considered an act of This journey toward healing is most giving testimony in which the protagonist palpably experienced midway through the repossesses her life story and “continue[s] film during Raimunda’s performance of and complete[s] the process of survival after the tango-flamenco “Volver.” Immediately liberation,” enabling that which “could not 10 Letras Hispanas Volume 15 be articulated” previously to “be told, to be cognitive skills have begun to fail her, making transmitted, to be heard,” no longer allow- her stories unreliable—Irene is still alive. She ing the tyranny of this untold experience to has been living in Aunt Paula’s home for the perpetuate itself by living outside the material last four years, taking care of her dying sister world (Laub 85). while hiding from others so as not to reveal a At the same time, this performance grave crime she committed. Though Irene is marks a return to Raimunda’s childhood per- careful to conceal her physical presence from formances of the song and her since-severed others, traces of her existence cannot be com- originary relationship with her mother. This pletely erased. Several people in the village return is affectively represented in the shot- report sights of her, believing to have seen reverse-shot sequence in which a tearful her ghost, and, while in Aunt Paula’s home, Irene watches Raimunda perform while hid- Raimunda and Sole cannot escape the strong den in a car and Raimunda longingly gazes in sense of their mother’s presence, particularly Irene’s direction. The powerfulness of Irene’s the smell of her farts, which the two daugh- presence for Raimunda in this moment is ters fondly remember. Perceiving these traces highlighted as Irene ducks behind the car of Irene, the two daughters imagine their window in fear that her daughter has spotted mother’s presence in a way that precedes the her. Irene still remains a disembodied specter process of embodiment by which Irene’s pro- for Raimunda until several scenes later, but found absence will materialize into a bodily her presence is experienced profoundly by presence for her daughters. Raimunda for whom a tearful, bodily form This stirring of specters—part of the of healing starts to take shape. Irene’s wit- film’s dance of embodiment—continues from nessing of Raimunda’s giving language to her here, representing the film’s call for restora- experience is a form of being present for the tion and a future not characterized by cycles moment in which “the person in pain redis- of incestuous violence. No guilt or wrongdo- covers speech and so regains [her] powers of ing is associated with the murder of Paco, self-objectification […] to be present at the who would have raped Paula if she had not birth, or rebirth of language” (Scarry 172). stopped him, nor with Irene’s murder of her This rebirth of language which Irene wit- husband, which takes place as soon as she nesses serves as a catalyst for the rebirth of learns of the horrible crimes he committed Raimunda and Irene’s originary relationship against Raimunda, many years after the fact. and sets into motion a dance of embodiment Irene’s “feminist justice that human courts of that this article will now explore before re- law still fall short of actualizing” in setting fire turning to further analysis of the aesthetics of to the home where her husband lay with his “Volver.” lover goes beyond the law not only in punish- Though it is Raimunda’s performance of ing rape, but in rehabilitating the present so “Volver” that most forcefully sets into motion that Raimunda might know a future no lon- the materializing of wandering spectral pres- ger characterized by paternal violence (Pérez ences, the need for engaging these spirits is Melgosa 222). Likewise, the murder of Paco established early on in Volver, beginning with not only protects Paula from suffering rape, the aforementioned gusty Solano in the film’s but also prevents cycles of violence from con- opening scene in the cemetery. This active tinuing, altogether eradicating “bad spectres recognition of “a tension between the past and of masculinity” associated with Francoism and the present, between the dead and the living” gender violence more broadly (Allbritton 61). continues into the next scene in which Raimun- While it is Paula and not her mother da and Sole take Paula to their aunt’s home (Eng who physically ends cycles of sexual violence, and Kazanjian 1). Unbeknownst to all but the Raimunda immediately assumes responsibil- aging Aunt Paula (Chus Lampreave)—whose ity for Paco’s body and murder. In addition Michelle Hulme-Lippert 11 to the maternal love and protection implied physical presence,” in this case, many meters by Raimunda’s taking “full responsibility for underground and many kilometers from the crime” (Kinder 5), this appropriation of home (207). culpability allows her to imagine avenging While justice and the eradication of and putting an end to the abuse she suffered, patriarchal violence within Volver depend seizing the act “from her daughter as a way upon laying to rest the bodies of Raimunda’s of grappling with her own father’s abuse of father and Paco, healing involves the search her” (Restuccia 135). Whereas Spain’s 1977 for the bodies of painfully missing mothers. Ley de amnistía and 2007 Ley de Memoria Specifically within the film, these are Agus- Histórica refused to name the past’s perpetra- tina’s mother, who disappeared nearly four tors, much less pursue punishment for their years ago, and Irene, whom all assumed to crimes, Volver imagines forms of restitution have died with her husband in the fire that in which victims might envision enacting the Solano wind swept through their home, bodily justice. Nonetheless, Raimunda’s care- two mothers whose fates we eventually learn ful treatment of Paco’s body that is eventually are closely intertwined. Despite Agustina’s buried by the Júcar river—his favorite rest- bodily pain due to her battle with cancer and ing place—and the interring of Raimunda’s “inevitable transformation of life into death,” father’s ashes in the village cemetery indicate she does not cease searching for her mother that this elimination of abusive fathers is not who disappeared the same day of the fire to be carried out with raging revenge that that burned down Raimunda’s parents’ home might simply reverse “the roles of perpetrator (Marsh 340). It is not until Volver’s end that and victim, continuing to imprison the vic- the spectator learns along with Raimunda tim in horror, degradation, and the bounds of what Agustina already suspected: that her the perpetrator’s violence” (Minow 13). What mother and Raimunda’s father were involved seems to be advocated, instead, is a graceful in an affair, and Irene started the fire that endeavor “to repair the injustice, to make up killed the two lovers. for it, and to effect corrective changes in the Agustina’s pained uncertainty regarding record, in relationships, and in future behav- her absent, disembodied mother points to a ior,” in line with Martha Minow’s articulation longing for her originary relationship, which of restorative justice (91). has been unmade as a consequence of patri- Put slightly differently, the burying of archal violence. This is presented early in the Paco’s body, which immediately follows Rai- film when Agustina remarks that she hopes munda’s performance of “Volver” and unsi- someone somewhere is taking care of her lencing of her past, can be considered an act missing mother the same way that she looks of embodiment. In accordance with Scarry’s after the aging Aunt Paula, followed by her work, this act deprives the external and spec- kissing of the photo of her mother that hangs tral world “of the privilege of being inanimate on the wall. The photo of Agustina’s young […] its privilege of being irresponsible to its “hippie” mother holding her infant daughter sentient inhabitants” (285). After cycles of pa- and her fashion-forward jewelry Agustina triarchal violence have been ended by Paula’s has kept serve as tangible traces of a mother just act, moving Paco’s corpse from the res- whose corporal presence we will not encoun- taurant’s deep freezer to a proper burial site ter. The photo and personal artifacts call to transforms the spectral omnipresence that mind the many memorials across the globe radiates from the constantly humming freez- that similarly remember those disappeared ing—a continual reminder to Raimunda and with photographs and personal details, such Paula of the bodily pain and trauma they have as the many former torture-centers-turned- suffered—to a “sphere of extension contract- memory-spaces in Argentina, invoking a ed down to the small circle of one’s immediate transnational phenomenon of disappeared 12 Letras Hispanas Volume 15 bodies. The remains of these omnipresent space, making it the ideal place for Agustina’s specters lie in unknown locations, and justice pained body to find its final rest with the has yet to be found for them and their pained resolution she has longed for regarding her family members, despite what Kathyrn Sik- mother’s whereabouts. This healing knowl- kink has described as an international “jus- edge allows Agustina’s mother’s restless spirit, tice cascade.” which has stirred great anxiety within Agus- Agustina’s resistance to report her tina, to materialize into physical remains rest- mother’s disappearance to the police—what ing peacefully in the cemetery where Agus- Raimunda and Sole tell her is the protocol tina’s well-cared-for home awaits her. for such a situation—denotes her mistrust Irene’s process of embodiment begins of Spanish institutional authorities. This out- with the previously mentioned sensory traces right refutation of the police’s capabilities, in Aunt Paula’s home, is followed by rumors particularly in light of the desperate and di- from women in the village who believe to sastrous appearance Agustina makes on her have seen her ghost, and culminates in her sister’s sensationalist talk show, suggests a in-flesh appearance to her daughters, grand- deep criticism of how state institutions have daughter, and Agustina. This transformation thus far handled searches for missing bodies, brings healing to many: Irene cares for Aunt speaking directly to ongoing debates within Paula’s every need in her final days and takes Spain about the then forthcoming Ley de Me- care of all funeral arrangements; she assists moria Histórica. In this negation of the state’s Agustina in dying peacefully, accompanying effectiveness, a desire for a more intimate ap- her in this final chapter as Agustina’s mother proach in accordance with the film’s emphasis might have done; and, most significantly for on female solidarity is demonstrated, for, as this essay’s purposes, she helps Raimunda be- Agustina says, “los trapos sucios los tenemos gin to heal from the pain and trauma of being que lavar entre nosotras.” raped by her father and distanced from her Agustina will not have the opportunity painfully oblivious mother. When Raimunda to reunite with her mother in the flesh, but first encounters her mother’s corporal pres- she will be cared for in her final days by an- ence hidden under Sole’s bed, she runs away, other maternal presence, that of Irene, who overwhelmed with pain, but—following Pau- will atone for the unintentional victim of the la’s prompting—she returns. Raimunda and fire she set. Agustina’s pained, overwhelmed, Irene tenderly walk arm-in-arm and then sit and cancer-ridden body finds relief upon side-by-side on a park bench while the cam- Irene’s appearance in her home, which Agus- era moves back and forth with close-ups of tina says she has long awaited. This arrival in the two women’s faces. Irene expresses her Volver’s closing scene is accompanied by the deep regret regarding how blind she was to same Solano gale that stirred in the cemetery what happened in her own home, narrating at the beginning of the film, which we might Raimunda’s story of rape, impregnation, and interpret as Agustina’s mother’s disembodied devastating estrangement from her family. presence accompanying Irene in tending to While Raimunda listens, tears stream down Agustina in these last days of life. Further ac- her face, as she finally receives what she knowledgement of the need for proper buri- has desired for years: the recognition of her als is made as Agustina comments to Irene, trauma. Through Irene’s confession and the who tucks Agustina in bed while adminis- remaking of her and Raimunda’s relation- tering her injections, that it was in this very ship, represented cinematically as the cam- same bed that she was born, that her mother era zooms out to show Raimunda’s laying in used to sleep, and that Aunt Paula rested dur- her mother’s lap as a child might do, we are ing her wake. Corporal birth, life, and death invited to witness how “the repeated failure have all been experienced in this intimate to have seen in time […] can be transformed Michelle Hulme-Lippert 13 into the imperative of a speaking that awak- in the film, but not in a manner that invokes ens others” (Caruth 91). a nostalgic return to this period. Rather, the Volver concludes with a moving em- form of “Volver” suggests a need for rebirth- brace between mother and daughter after ing that which was appropriated and violated Raimunda runs to Agustina’s house in search by Francoism, in accordance with Gutiérrez- of her mother. Raimunda tearfully tells her Albilla’s argument that a recuperation of “tra- mother she does not know how she has lived ditional stereotypes of Spanish culture [...] so the past fourteen years without her, and Irene as to disassociate or rescue them from their tells her to stop so as not to make her cry, for ideologically reactionary connotations” is ghosts cannot cry. A healing Raimunda leaves common to Almodóvar’s cinema (“Return- Agustina’s home, comforted by the promise of ing” 330-31).5 Raimunda and the band’s raw a restored relationship with her mother, and performance of “Volver” does not resemble Irene heads towards the stairs, wiping with the “carefully cultivated, cosmetically re- a handkerchief the tears of a ghost-turned- touched, and strategically orchestrated” form human. of nacional flamenquismopromoted under Franco; rather, it is a cathartic narration of a Rebirthing flamenco painful past that more closely approximates the cante jondo form of flamenco (Washa- This article now returns to Raimunda’s baugh 60). Cante jondo, one of the deepest performance of “Volver,” which I have ar- and most serious forms of flamenco, was gued serves as a catalyst for Volver’s intimate, equated by the poet Federico García Lorca graceful movement of bodies and spirits; that “with ancient Greek tragedy in seriousness, is, the interring of Paco’s haunting corpse and intensity, and in its cathartic release of ten- phantoms of patriarchal violence, the resolu- sion” (Handley 51). It was also prohibited tion Agustina receives regarding her mother’s in Francoist Spain for the political threats it bodily remains, Agustina’s joining of her posed in elevating regional politics and An- mother in her tenderly cared for new home, dalucía’s racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity. and Irene’s transformation from a painfully Raimunda’s deep, healing song might be ar- missing specter into a fully corporal mother. gued, then, to recuperate modes of flamenco In this performance of “Volver,” the aesthet- and historical memory that predate Franco in ics with which Raimunda cathartically brings favor of fuller forms of expression. her trauma center stage are complemented by “Volver” not only recuperates the ca- the song’s lyrics, which tell of a painful and thartic cante jondo tradition, but also rehabil- intentionally-silenced past that forcefully re- itates the appropriated style of flamenco pro- turns and must be confronted. In this way, the duced by Francoism by finding a new form of song acts as an auditory echoing of the film’s expression in converting Gardel’s tango into a central narrative. flamenco. This fusion of tango and flamenco Furthermore, the need for rehabilitat- that emotively break years of silence shares ing a painful past is embodied by the form of parallels with the combination of cante jondo “Volver,” a new hybridized flamenco version and the blues in the performance of “Saeta” of Argentinian Carlos Gardel’s 1935 tango in Almodóvar’s La flor de mi secreto, which with which artist Estrella Morente (the voice José Colmeiro argues demonstrates that “del behind Raimunda’s lip-synching) subse- dolor y del sufrimiento puede salir en forma quently erupted onto Spanish stages. Flamen- catártica algo nuevo y regenerador” (123). co, a genre quintessential to the folkloric and This regenerative form of flamenco is further- monolithic image of Spain that Franco’s regime more one with transnational connections, as sought to fossilize nationally and export inter- Marvin D’Lugo has examined, pointing to the nationally, is employed in this pivotal moment intended international audience of Gardel’s 14 Letras Hispanas Volume 15 original version, which famously appeared in prosecuted and political and financial sup- the 1935 filmEl día que me quieras, “designed port offered to human rights organizations to circulate internationally [...] able to affirm and public memorial sites. Raimunda’s per- the emotional bonds uniting a diasporic His- formance of this reworking of Gardel’s “Volv- panic community,” leading the adapted ver- er” might thereby be considered to imagine sion found in Volver to promote a much more extensive model for Spain’s recuperation of historical memory than that in its listeners and performers iden- proposed by the Ley de Memoria Histórica.7 tification with the motif of personal The transnational and transgeneration- displacement and migration, most al roots of “Volver” thus suggest the need for recently updated in the narratives of more collective and inclusive approaches to political and economic exile in both dealing with issues that impact global, con- Spanish and Latin American cinemas. nected communities, including the recupera- (416)6 tion of historical memory, presented by the performance of “Volver” as a collective and The transatlantic connections invoked affective “physical experience” (Gutiérrez- by this song are most particularly Argentin- Albilla, Aesthetics, Ethics, and Trauma 43). ean-Spanish ones, a linking not uncommon While “purist” forms of flamenco might be to other Almodóvarian films, as Juan Carlos soloistic in nature, expressing “an individual’s Ibañéz has examined. In his analysis of Todo innermost feelings and inner intensity,” the sobre mi madre, Ibañéz demonstrates that experience itself does not remain individual- Almodóvar had first-hand experience with istic (Claus 94). Raimunda’s performance of the impact of Argentinean actors from left- “Volver” moves Irene to tears, captivates her ist Peronist theater groups exiled in Spain and on-screen audience, and is often commented suggests that Argentine Cecilia Roth’s role in upon by film reviewers as central to the film. Todo sobre mi madre invokes “the shadow of For Gutiérrez-Albilla, this contributes to an the traumatic Argentine political and social intimate and interpretive encounter for the experience” (165). Following Ibañéz’s line of viewer with Almodóvar’s cinema that “fore- argument and this essay’s consideration of grounds the potential transformation of our Volver within the context of Spain’s memory ethical and political relation to personal and debates, I would like to propose that the tango historical traumatic experiences” (Aesthetics, origins of “Volver” also call to mind parallel Ethics and Trauma 175). processes of Argentinean transitional justice Furthermore, this emotive performance politics. As in Spain, the thousands of bodies can be argued to contribute to the remaking buried in mass graves and undisclosed loca- of the world in its cathartic conversion of un- tions during Argentina’s last dictatorship are speakable bodily pain into a filmic language still being unearthed today. Though, in con- that expresses, embodies, and bears witness trast to Spain’s pacto del silencio, Argentina’s to trauma that is intensely personal and si- transition to democracy was accompanied by multaneously collective. As Alexander writes, the appointment of a truth commission and cultural trauma is best understood not as a the annulment of the military’s amnesty law group experiencing pain, but “the result of within newly elected President Raúl Alfon- this acute discomfort entering into the core sín’s first week in office. The transitional jus- of the collectivity’s sense of its own identity” tice progress made by Alfonsín was furthered that can eventually allow collectivities “to de- through the administrations of Presidents fine new forms of moral responsibility and to Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007) and Cristina redirect the course of political action” (10, 27). Fernández de Kirchner (2007-2015), with With the aforementioned memory debates hundreds of the dictatorship’s perpetrators taking place in Spain, particularly regarding Michelle Hulme-Lippert 15 the unearthing of mass graves, we can indeed trauma suffered from sexual violence, mur- see Spain’s violent Francoist past contributing der, and the silencing of such violence, fo- to a sense of cultural trauma and collective cusing too much on a forgetful and forgiving identity in the present. Almodóvar’s strong moving forward. The rather swift restoration statements about the importance of the work experienced by the film’s characters seems of the ARMH point to his desire for these incongruent not only within the film’s narra- new “forms of moral responsibility,” and this tive, but also on the symbolic level as a form article argues that acts of creating, materializ- of healing from cultural trauma after decades ing, and embodying within Volver contribute of political violence and repressive silence. to this work. Moreover, Almodóvar’s later films suggest that this painful past continues to exert Finding baile jondo its violence on the present, indicating the insufficiency ofVolver ’s dance-like moving For Gutiérrez-Albilla, this proposed of bodies and specters. In Los abrazos ro- future within Volver in which a “feminine tos (2009), Penélope Cruz, as Lena, is again ethics of embodied care” is embraced “may the victim of male violence who attempts be considered a utopian goal, [but] it is, per- to break free from her abusive relationship haps, a necessary one” (“Returning” 336). with Ernesto and begin a more democratic However, I would like to suggest that this one with Harry. In La piel que habito (2011), graceful, curative utopia results rather sud- contrary to Volver, confronting the past and denly in Volver. The attempted rape of Paula taking justice into one’s own hands has cata- and her subsequent murder of her father in strophic consequences when Robert takes self-defense, as well as Raimunda’s history of vengeance on his daughter’s rapist by im- abuse and estrangement from her mother, are prisoning and transgendering him, partially worked through relatively seamlessly without attempting to recreate his wife and daughter, any trace of the fragmentation, nonsynchro- both of whom he lost to suicide. The destruc- nous sound, jerky footage, or unusual angles tive and dystopic near future of La piel que Walker describes as characteristic of trauma habito, taking place in 2012, characterized by cinema. Nor does Volver’s linear narration of Robert’s psychopathic vengeance, which re- the process from confrontation of trauma to sults in the death of nearly all the film’s char- healing represent the disruptions, incompre- acters, provides a sharp contrast to the rural hensibility, or—despite the film’s emphasis on utopia brought about by Volver’s beyond-the- returning—reoccurrences of “repeated flash- law justice. Lena’s difficulty escaping from backs, nightmares, and other repetitive phe- an abusive relationship with Ernesto in Los nomena” trauma theorists describe as essen- abrazos rotos and La piel que habito’s multiple tial to recovery processes (Caruth 91). Using violations of women and attempt to create a Pierre Janet’s terms, Volver might be consid- skin that would protect one from all forms of ered a form of narrative memory in its coher- trauma suggest that the present continues to ence that makes sense of the past and its logi- be painfully marked and affected by the past. cal form that is easily related to others, rather In Los amantes pasajeros, a film Al- than intensive, uncontrollable, and episodic modóvar himself has described as “the most memories that cannot be synthesized into a political film I’ve ever made,” a return to a di- story (qtd. in Van der Kolk, Brown, and Van sastrous economic and political state—pres- der Hart).8 In accordance with Ruth Leys’s ent-day Spain under Partido Popular Prime criticism of Janet’s advocacy of transforming Minister Mariano Rajoy—is represented by traumatic memory into narrative memory in a drugged, comatose economy class, corrupt order to bring about recovery, Volver’s fluid and scandalous business class passengers re- approach partly minimizes the impact of the sponsible for the country’s dire situation, and 16 Letras Hispanas Volume 15 a plane that aimlessly circles in the air, finally and Slaughter 11). To this end, this essay has landing in an abandoned airport (Gritten). sought to shed light on how Almodóvar’s own The politics of this film focus on present-day recent remarks that favor nonfiction nar- corruption and unemployment, but Spain’s ratives more likely to result in direct action past is invoked in the characters’ repeated ref- under-privilege the therapeutic labor of sym- erences to a pacto del silencio that had been bolically working through cultural trauma. In arranged on a previous flight on the same more closely bearing witness to trauma’s lin- aircraft when those in business class killed an gering and language-shattering effects, these economy passenger. The past’s specters there- works construct a sense of not-aloneness for by persist in a moment in Spain in which not only their characters, but also their audi- those in power have ties to the country’s past ences, who might experience some degree of violence and silence. Finally, in Julieta, ill- healing in engaging with long-term processes ness, death, and loss plague generations of of recovery not unlike their own. In turn, the estranged mothers and daughters, though the cathartic companionship birthed by these film’s ending offers hope that healing might acts of witnessing might serve in the global be possible. labor of materializing and burying specters In these more recent Almodóvarian from painful pasts, continuing the work of narratives, trauma continues to exert pain and “making the world” (Scarry 23). unmake the world, suggesting that Volver’s cathartic unsilencing of the past and uplifting Notes dance of embodiment did not bring an end to this violence. Rather, they were one step in an 1 The concept of collective or cultural trauma ongoing series that more closely mimics baile is a contested one, and attention has been drawn jondo’s intense and uncontrolled movements. to methodological issues involved with theorizing If trauma cannot be resolved in a tidy way, collective trauma from a psychoanalytical lens, as if to suggest that a collective experiences the same succumbing to “closure and coherence,” it psychological processes an individual might. Wulf should be expected that a single film or novel Kansteiner argues that the concept of trauma “nei- cannot fully capture the uncontained journey ther captures nor illuminates the forces that con- from violence and pain to restoration (White- tribute to the making and unmaking of collective head 142). This essay thus posits interpreting memories […] the delayed onset of public debates the more graceful and utopic restoration ex- about the meaning of negative pasts has more to perienced within Volver not as a complete em- do with political interest and opportunities than bodying and burying of past trauma that will the persistence of trauma” (187). From Kanstein- forever remain peacefully interred, but as one er’s perspective, a more illuminating approach to understanding what is often meant by collective act in a much longer—possibly never-ending, 9 memory can be found in communication and culas Dominick LaCapra suggests—process. tural studies focused on the formation of historical These films thereby participate in a dynamic, consciousness created by the dynamic relationship nonlinear baile jondo of imaginative cultural between memory makers, memory users, and ob- work that rebirths language in order to com- jects of tradition and representation. Jeffrey Alex- municate, bear witness to, and materialize ander similarly suggests the constructive nature of personal and cultural trauma, particularly— collective memory, but he does believe that cul- but not exclusively—that of Spain’s Francoist tural trauma exists in a profound fashion. 2 past. This performative embodying of pain See Cathy Caruth and Jill Matus, for example. 3 See Priscilla Hayner’s Unspeakable Truths in is done “over time and space [...] through the which she examines truth commissions and tran- forms of stories that enable forms of thought, sitional justice politics in over twenty countries in forms of commitment, forms of being, and these regions, highlighting commissions in South forms of justice,” in contrast to works that Africa, Guatemala, Peru, Timor-Leste, and Mo- overtly call for immediate action (McClennen rocco as particularly effective ones. Michelle Hulme-Lippert 17

4 With the term “recuperation of historical may not recur and require renewed and perhaps memory,” I make reference to the controversies changed ways of working through them again,” surrounding Spain’s lack of transitional justice pol- potentially resulting in an endless process (148). itics as well as the labor of recuperating memory taken up by much cultural production, analyzed in depth by Jo Labanyi, Cristina Moreiras Menor, and Works Cited Joan Ramon Resina (“Short of Memory”), among others. See Resina for a critical reflection on this Alexander, Jeffrey C. “Toward a Theory of Cultural commonplace phrase. Trauma.” Cultural trauma and collective identity, 5 Franco’s promotion of flamenco is parodied edited by Jeffrey C. Alexander et al., U of Califor- in films such as Luis García Berlanga’s¡ Bienveni- nia P, 2004, pp. 1-31. do Mister Marshall! and Juan Antonio Bardem’s Allbritton, Dean. “Timing Out: The Politics of Death Muerte de un ciclista. See Daniela Flesler and and Gender in Almodóvar’s Volver.” Hispanic Adrián Pérez Melgosa for more regarding how Research Journal, vol. 16, no. 1, 2015, pp. 49-64. Franco’s Ministry of Tourism endorsed a stereo- “Almodóvar, Pilar Bardem y otros actores se encierran typed national image centered upon flamenco mu- por el juez.” El País, 14 Apr. 2010. sic and dance, bullfighting, and Catholicism. Caruth, Cathy. Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narra- 6 See also Debra Ochoa’s analysis of how the tive, and History. The Johns Hopkins UP, 1996. use of Andalucian flamenco in a film that takes Claus, Madeleine. “Baile flamenco.”Flamenco: Gypsy place largely in Castilla-La Mancha “illustrates Dance and Music from Andalusia, edited by Claus how culture transforms as it moves from one loca- Schreiner, Amadeus Press, 1990, pp. 89-120. tion to another,” reflecting the migratory nature of Colmeiro, José. “Del rosa al negro: Subtextos culturales all cultures and problematizing Spanish tradition en La flor de mi secreto.” Arizona Journal of His- and identity (138). panic Cultural Studies, vo1. 1, 1997, pp. 115-28. 7 This connection is further enriched by Al- Derrida, Jacques. Specters of Marx: The state of the debt, modóvar’s strong support of Spanish Judge Baltas- the work of mourning, and the new international. ar Garzón. Garzón’s extensive involvement in pur- Routledge, 2006. suing those accused of human rights violations D’Lugo, Marvin. “Almodóvar and Latin America: The internationally has included his sentencing of Ar- Making of a Transnational Aesthetic in Volver.” gentine naval officer Adolfo Scilingo to over one All About Almodóvar: A Passion for Cinema, ed- thousand years in prison for his role in the vuelos ited by Brad Epps and Despina Kakoudaki, U of de la muerte, the common Dirty Wary practice of Minneapolis P, 2009, pp. 412-31. drugging detainees and dumping them from naval Eng, David L. and David Kazanjian. Loss: The Politics aircrafts into the Río de la Plata where they were of Mourning. U of California P, 2003. “disappeared.” In response to the Spanish Supreme Flesler, Daniela and Adrián Pérez Melgosa. “Market- Court’s indictment of Garzón for overstepping his ing Convivencia: Contemporary Tourist Appro- jurisdiction when he began to investigate crimes priations of Spain’s Jewish Past.” Spain is (Still) against humanity committed during Franco’s re- Different: Tourism and Discourse in Spanish Iden- gime, Almodóvar participated in a lock-in that tity, edited by Eugenia Afinoguénova and Jaume protested Garzón’s prosecution in April 2010, Martí-Olivella, Lanham, Lexington Books, 2008, commenting that if Garzón were to be benched, it pp. 63-84. would be “como si Franco volviera a ganar” (“Al- Gómez, Lourdes. “Almodóvar planea una película so- modóvar, Pilar Bardem y otros actores …”). bre las víctimas del Franquismo.” El Mundo, 13 8 Drawing on Steven Marsh’s work, Gutiérrez- Jan. 2015. Albilla’s recent Aesthetics, Ethics and Trauma in the Gritten, David. “I’m So Excited: Pedro Almodóvar’s Cinema of Pedro Almodóvar makes the argument very serious comedy.” The Telegraph,2 May 2013. that this narrative is not entirely linear based on Gutiérrez-Albilla, Julián Daniel. Aesthetics, Ethics and the spectral presences that cause “folds, breaks, Trauma in the Cinema of Pedro Almodóvar. Ed- and gaps of/in time” (44). Nonetheless, I would inburgh UP, 2017. maintain that Volver presents working through —. “Returning to and from the Maternal Rural Space: trauma as a rather seamless and coherent process. Traumatic Memory, Late Modernity and Nos- 9 LaCapra posits that even when traumas “are talgic Utopia in Almodóvar’s Volver.” Bulletin of worked through, this does not mean that they Hispanic Studies, vol. 88, no. 3, 2011, pp. 321-38. 18 Letras Hispanas Volume 15

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