Europe is ageing: the Oedipal trajectory and its social implications in Alumbramiento

From a gendered perspective, Alumbramiento is a traditional Oedipal scenario. However, in spite of the supposed ahistoricism of its Freudian overtones, they could and should be read as having profoundly social implications. If, on the individual level of one family, the film explores the death of the matriarch and the emotional and practical impact it has on her son and daughter, at the more collective level it extends to the issue of ageing Europe and the question of who is doing the caring. As such the film reinforces the gendered division of caring labour where it is women who carry its burden.