Piedad (La)

With its Pepto Bismal-coloured walls and soft-lightning, Eduardo Casanova's latest presents a toxic relationship between a mother and son. The overtly composed shots and hyperreal colour schemes allude to a world of elaborate bubblegum fantasies in the style of MGM musicals and telenovelas. Still, the pitch-perfect world quickly gives way to the grotesque. Sitting across from each other in a perfectly symmetrical shot, Libertad (the great Ángela Molina, frequent Almodovar collaborator who also played one of the Conchitas in Bunuel's swan song, THAT OBSCURE OBJECT OF DESIRE) questions her son, Mateo (Manel Llunell) about his bowel movements. As the scene devolves, both projectile vomit across the room, an incident that will lead up to a cancer diagnosis and Libertad's already stringent grasp coiling ever tighter around the freedom of her adult son.

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