“World-building” usually refers to how the makers of science fiction and fantasy construct their domains, populating them with imaginary creatures and allegorical meanings.
It’s a version of Spain , informed by that country’s aesthetic and literary traditions, a legacy that encompasses the perverse whimsy of Surrealism and the openhearted pathos of flamenco.
At first, the war seems like an unlikely, poignant entry point into a uniquely Almodóvarian swirl of present-day romantic complication and domestic anguish.
All of this happens quickly, and seems like a complicated narrative mechanism designed to introduce Janis to Ana , a teenager she meets in the maternity ward.
The central plot of “Parallel Mothers” is vintage Almodóvar: a skein of reversals, revelations, surprises and coincidences unraveled with style, wit and feeling.
Ana is the child of an , an aura of privilege clings to her family.
She has her own problems to confront, some of which resemble Ana’s, some of which put them in conflict with each other.
If, at first, the horror of the past had seemed like the scaffolding for a modern story, the final sections of “Parallel Mothers” suggest the opposite.
A reality as stark, as brutal, as unresolved as the fascist terror that dominated Spain in the middle decades of the 20th century doesn’t fit comfortably within his elegant frames and melodramatic conceits.