'A todo el mundo le gustaría que su madre fuera una estrella de rock ...' ['Everyone Would Like Their Mother to Be a Rockstar ...']: Music, Mourning, and the (Absent) Maternal Voice in Todos están muertos (Beatriz Sanchís, 2014)

Abstract

Todos están muertos [They Are All Dead] (Beatriz Sanchís, 2014) foregrounds, and challenges, the problematic idolisation and idealisation of mothers and motherhood. The film situates motherhood at the cross-section of music and mourning and offers a portrait of undesired and traumatic motherhood that contrasts with the tendency to depict maternity as unquestionably fulfilling. Todos están muertos centres the maternal voice and the transformation of silence into language and action as vital aspects of maternal subjectivity. This chapter also unpacks intersections amongst music, voice, and the unsaid for other characters in the film. The final section interrogates a third aspect of the soundtrack, an English language-learning tape that Lupe listens to whilst stuck in her kitchen repeatedly baking tartas de manzana. Ultimately, Noble contends that the film posits music as a method of processing trauma, a site of communication, and a means of accessing other worlds and realities.