Having taken a “duvet day” off work, I booked out three DVDs and this was one of them. This is the third time I’ve seen ‘All About My Mother’ and it improves on each viewing. It’s a technical triumph with all the dissolves, cuts and lighting shifts you could ever want in a film. Like all Almodovar films, it’s art directed to within an inch of its life; you just want to parachute into this heavily saturated, primary coloured, sensuously furnished universe.

On top of this is a magnificent plot that pays homage to the eternal feminine in cinematic history and Western culture, while playing around with our expectations as viewers. Women who were once men emote, heroin addicts and pregnant nuns cross paths with philandering sex change robbers who in turn ruffle the feathers of bourgeois Spain. It’s an inter-textual delight.

At the heart of the film is the relationship between mother and child, and in the centre of that is the search for goodness, hope and meaning in the face of death. Almodovar deftly explores these themes while never losing a sense of the absurd or sympathy for his characters.

With stunning performances by Cecilia Roth as bereaved mother Manuela and Marisa Paredes as Huma/Blanche Dubois, supported by Antonia San Juan and Penelope Cruz, you’d be a fool to miss this one.