Trauma in the Film Todo Sobre Mi Madre

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Todo Sobre Mi Madre – PTSD and The Violent Death of A Child Todo Sobre Mi Madre is a Spanish film, directed and written by Pedro Almodóvar in 1999. The title of the film roughly translates as All About My Mother. The protagonist of the film is Manuela, a single mother who lives with her son Esteban. Manuela works as a nurse who deals with organ transplants in a hospital in Madrid, Spain. Her true calling was as an actress, which she has not done since her youth. Esteban has prospects to become a writer, hence the title of the film, All About My Mother, which reflects the title of an essay he is writing. On Esteban’s seventeenth birthday he and his mother go to see the play A Streetcar Named Desire, which Manuela had starred in when she was younger. Esteban’s father, who Manuela has kept a secret, also starred in the play. As a present to Esteban’s request to know more about his father, Manuela had planned on telling her son the truth that his father is a transvestite named Lola. Before they go home, where Manuela plans to divulge all her secrets, Esteban wants to get an autograph of the current star of the play, Huma Rojo (which can be translated as “red smoke”). Unfortunately, Huma is in a rush and gets in her car before Esteban has a chance to get his autograph. It is nighttime and it begins to rain. Esteban begins to chase the car. The viewer can see the anxiety on Manuela’s face. While Esteban is running after the car to get the signature, a taxi suddenly hits and kills him in front of Manuela. She runs to him screaming “My son!” After Esteban’s confirmed death, Manuela must sign papers to willingly have his heart transplanted to a man in Coruña, which retraumatizes her. Manuela begins to suffer intense depression and strats to experience Criterion D symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), such as hyperarousal. 6 Manuela is depicted as an utter
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