"Live Flesh" (1997)

(Originally released as Carne Tremula)

Starring: Javier Bardem, Francesca Neri, Liberto Rabal, Angela Molina, Jose Sancho, Penelope Cruz

First, The Lowdown: A former inmate plans revenge on the cop who imprisoned him by seducing his wife. And then it gets weird.

Okay, I confess. I’m quickly becoming a fan of Pedro Almodovar. I have enjoyed everything I’ve watched by him so far and look forward to seeing more. In case you guys haven’t figured it out, I am getting the majority of my movies via NetFlix, a service that I am completely enslaved to. Within a week of subscribing I found out that there is a maximum of 500 movies one can have in their queue. This discovery came about because when you place one movie into your queue, NetFlix suggests about a dozen others. So being the obsessive-compulsive movie addict I am, I added as many as I could. This will probably explain for many of you the weird trends in cinema I keep taking.

Okay, confession’s over.

Madrid, 1970: While radios broadcast a declaration of a nation state of emergency, a young prostitute, Isabel, shrieks out as she goes into labor. Having ignored the signs of her pending childbirth for too long, Isabel and her friend Centro stop a bus so that it will take them to the hospital only to give birth anyway in transit. An otherwise ordinary birth causes a brief sensation in the local media, and both Isabel and her new son, Victor, are given lifetime bus passes.

Fast forward twenty years. Victor is now a socially awkward pizza delivery boy with, Elena, a hooker he had a tryst with the night before. Elena is concerned with scoring more drugs than meeting Victor again, so when Victor shows up at her door, he is not greeted warmly. On the street two police officers, David and Sancho, patrol the quarters known for prostitution and drugs. Sancho is an abusive alcoholic, and David detests his superior’s habits and attitude, but the both are duty-bound to work with each other. Elena tries to forcibly eject Victor from her flat by threatening him with a gun. They scuffle and the gun goes off, knocking out Elena in the process. A neighbor hears the gunshot and calls the police. Responding to the call, Sancho and David see Elena and Victor fighting in the window. Thinking they have an assault on their hands, the burst into Elena’s flat, which panics Victor. He quickly grabs Elena’s gun and holds her hostage. But while David attempts to calm Victor down, Sancho grows increasingly impatient and tackles the younger man to wrest the gun away from him. The gun goes off, hitting David in the back.

Fast forward 2 years. Victor is now in prison for his attack on the police officers and David is now paralyzed from the waist down. David refuses to let his disability get him down and helps the Spanish wheelchair basketball team get the gold medal in the Barcelona Olympiad and is married to Elena.

Fast forward four years. Victor has now gotten out of prison and David has been riding high on his success in the Olympics with a professional sports career and multiple product endorsements. Elena, however, has been managing an orphanage. While in jail, Victor devoted his time to studying the bible and taking correspondence college courses in teaching. Isabel, Victor’s mother, succumbed to cancer while he was imprisoned, so he visits her grave. At the same time, however, Elena and David are attending the funeral of Elena’s father. Seeing them awakens the seed of vengeance in Victor and he formulate a plan to seduce Elena.

As he leaves the cemetery, he encounters Clara. The two begin to socialize and an affair begins. Later we find out that Clara is Sancho’s wife, and is repeatedly abused during his drunken tirades. Victor volunteers at Elena’s orphanage, against her protests, but proves to be such a devoted worker to the children that Elena cannot find a good reason to dismiss him. Hearing of this, David becomes increasingly paranoid as to Victor’s intentions and begins following him.

The one thing I find frustrating about Pedro Almodovar’s films is that they are so visually and dramatically complex that it makes it difficult to review them without giving away too much plot. This film is particularly layered visually there are several scenes that manage to advance the plot in mere seconds that would take another director minutes to reveal. And yet nothing feels too rushed. One thing I am thankful for is the amount of characterization we are given during the course of the movie. If done by an American director, the nature of Victor’s birth and incarceration would probably have been told as exposition rather than demonstrated.

Line of the movie: “This sums up my life. Dragging myself along to be near you.”

Four stars. Void where prohibited.