'Your town,' the TV presenter says to her guest on a live talk show, 'has the highest incidence of insanity in the whole of Spain. Do you think this fact explains the story you are about to tell us?' The guest, as it happens, isn't about to tell a story at all, since she suddenly decides not to spill her local beans and walks off the set. But we're already laughing at the mock sociology of the question, and since it occurs about two-thirds of the way through Pedro Almodóvar's new film, Volver, we know better than to take it as mere filling, or even as offering any sort of information. First, because there are probably any number of towns in Spain that could compete for the title; and second, because we don't want to align ourselves with the presenter's smug rationality. But do we want to align ourselves with superstition?

LRB 21 September 2006 | PDF Download