Nothing new under the sun or Volver by Pedro Almodóvar

Abstract

This article examines Pedro Almodóvar’s Volver (2006) and, secondarily, Paul Haggis’s Crash (2004) from a philosophical perspective influenced by philosophical materialism. Marcelino Javier Suárez Ardura argues that Volver should not be understood merely as a tribute to women or as a denunciation of domestic violence. Instead, it presents a metaphysical structure centred on generational repetition and the idea of eternal return. The film connects past and present, countryside and city, through the relationships among three generations of women whose lives are linked by secrets, violence and recurring patterns. The notion of «return» is developed as coming back, repetition and cyclical recurrence, suggesting the persistence of barbaric forms beneath modern social transformations. By contrast, Crash is interpreted as a critical representation of the multicultural tensions of contemporary American society. According to the author, the film portrays conflicts arising not from a clash of cultures but from contradictions between institutions, ideological frameworks and actual social practices.