I've been a fan of Pedro Almodovor's for some years now, going back to the late 1980's. Watching 'Volver' today reminded me of so many reasons why I enjoy his films so much and watching the special features on the two-disc set really hits home to me how much of his own personality makes it to the screen.

Part of his power is to make his scripts, characters (obviously with the incredible talents of the actors to bring them to life) and settings so natural, real and emotive. The pure love that Pedro has for Penelope Cruz's character (and indeed, the woman herself as both of them discuss in a round-table chat with the cast and director) shines through all the drama and humour of the film itself. The ever wonderful Carmen Maura once again shows herself to be a world-class acting talent as indeed do all the women in the cast.

The amusing and interesting thing is that whilst Pedro has always focused on strong female characters in his films, this movie pretty much just puts men in there as incidental mostly non-speaking characters who propel events or are footnotes to the women's stories, and manages to make this seem natural, so compelling and organic are the female driven narratives.

It's something that I find interesting when writing as well, and whilst I wouldn't equate myself with Pedro Almodovor (give me a few years yet to achieve Spanish Genius level ), I definitely understand the way that he writes the female characters and the underlying impulse to follow stories through from a female perspective and learn a lot writing said characters IF you write them 'truthfully' and allow them to be themselves and be real.

When writing guys, it's much easier to forget about making them as real as possible, from a guy's perspective, but when trying to bring a female character to life, I find myself spending a lot more time on details, background, perspective, attitude and how she thinks, feels, acts, etc.

With every character I write, I'll try to always, like I mentioned, write from truth and not just try to make a point, polemicize or use a person in a story to just express one of my view-points.

Almodovor is fascinating to watch in the round-table chat with the principal cast members and watch his interactions with the others, espeically Penelope Cruz and Carmen Maura who both make some very interesting points and discuss their relationships with Pedro and how that relationship affects and informs the dynamic of the final works.

Go watch it.