Volver

I don't speak Spanish, but online translators tell me volver translates alternately as return, go back, come back, and turn around. When Raimunda is singing "Volver, volver," the subtitles tell me it means "Come back, come back." The revolving windmills outside their village is a repeating visual motif. My point is, this movie isn't being subtle with its theme of returning, of things coming back.

But boy, it's being layered with that theme, isn't it? Everybody's got secrets, everybody's lying about the present (or recent past), and everybody's distant pasts seem like inexhaustible mysteries. Never dull for a moment, with characters so... human! If Hollywood wrote women like this, I think we'd have a very different cinematic landscape.