Beyond the grave

It's an irony somehow typical of Pedro Almodóvar that his latest film is called Volver ("to return") yet it has generated nothing but talk of how much the Spanish director has moved on.

The colourful and outrageous nature of 1980s breakthrough successes such as Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown meant the films' serious strands were easily ignored. Recently, however, that's changed. There's still plenty of fun in his films such as All About My Mother and Bad Education, but the big issues - bereavement, paedophilia and now death - are much harder to ignore.

"I think it's a question of time passing," reflects the director, who will be 57 next month. "I've matured, so a more naturalistic form interests me and emotion has become more important than humour. Adulthood has pushed me to look inside myself more and has completely changed the type of stories I want to work with."

Yet his new film's title is appropriate. Raimunda (Penélope Cruz), a put-upon working-class mother, attempts to secretly bury the husband her daughter has murdered, while her sister Sole (Lola Dueñas) deals with the unexpected return of their dead mother (Carmen Maura). It's a film about being haunted but in a naturalistic rather than a creepy sense and, as well as the return of Cruz and Maura, who have both worked with him before, it signifies AlmodÛvar's return to La Mancha, where he grew up.

"In La Mancha," he explains, "the living and the dead cohabit in a very natural way. For example, in the first image of this film there are lots of women cleaning graves in the cemetery. These are real village women, not extras, and they do this at least three times a week. There are many changes in the villages but not in their relationship with death."

Raimunda has a rather different relationship with death: she has a body to hide. Cruz is wonderful as the sturdy yet vulnerable matriarch but this is the story of a female community. The only men are dead, their influence strong but invariably malign. The past floats over the story - like a ghost. "What really interested me was the way these women fight for survival - including the woman who's supposed to be dead," Almodóvar explains.

Maura was a muse-like figure for the young director but after Women On The Verge... they mysteriously fell out. But that, he says, lasted only a few years. "This was the first time I found an appropriate character. It was very moving; there was the same chemistry. It was as if we had stopped working together the day before."

This particular return makes for an emotional denouement: when Maura's character finally sees Raimunda it's as much AlmodÛvar's past meeting his present as it is a touching mother-daughter reunion. This is Cruz's third Almodóvar film but her marvellous work in Spain has been followed by a Hollywood stint notable for glitzy boyfriends and lacklustre roles.

"I don't like to judge her career in America," says Almodóvar warily. "It's so difficult for a Spanish actress just to get where she is. But at present, American cinema isn't very good. It depends on the script... and Penélope needs time. We rehearsed daily for over two months; I don't think that happens in America. But I agree she's much better in Spanish. In this case, she's gorgeous. I'm still writing the next movie but I'll try to find her a character."

Guaranteed, it won't be someone simple. The writer Gustavo Martín Garzo describes innocence as something that usually appears in the darkest places. "I don't want to be presumptuous," says this most modest of directors, "but I think that's a good description of the characters in my films. They are assassins, rapists and so on but I don't treat them as criminals; I talk about their humanity." Which is probably why, without trivialising the issues, he can make great entertainment out of grave subjects - literally, in this case. Murder? Rape? Abandonment? Bring it on.

Volver opens on Friday