Carne trémula

Plot synopsis:
Madrid, Christmas 1970. The Franco regime has declared a state of emergency curtailing civil liberties. A young prostitute, Isabel Plaza Caballero (Penélope Cruz), gives birth on a bus to a son she names Víctor. Twenty years later, Víctor Plaza (Liberto Rabal) shows up for a date with Elena (Francesca Neri), a junkie with whom he had sex a week earlier. Elena is waiting for her drug dealer to arrive and orders Víctor to leave, eventually threatening him with a gun. Enraged, Víctor wrestles the gun from her; in the process Elena gets knocked out, and the gun goes off. A neighbour hears the shot and calls the police.
Two cops respond to the report. The older cop, Sancho (José Sancho), is an unstable alcoholic who suspects his wife Clara (Angela Molina) of infidelity. The younger cop, David (Javier Bardem), more clean-cut and sober. Through the window they catch sight of Víctor physically struggling with Elena. Sancho is ready to storm the apartment, while David wants to call for a back-up. When they enter, Víctor holds Elena hostage at gunpoint. David tries to calm him down and get him to drop his gun, but Sancho sabotages his efforts by repeatedly threatening Víctor. Finally, David puts his gun to Sancho's head and gets first Sancho and then Víctor to put down their guns. David orders Elena to flee. Sancho then lunges for Víctor, and as they wrestle for the gun it fires.
Two years later, Víctor, in jail, watches a wheelchair basketball match. David, now partially paralyzed from the gunshot two years earlier, is a star player in the 1992 Summer Paralympics. Elena, now his wife, cheers him on from the sidelines. Víctor has made good use of his time in jail, taking a correspondence course in education, working out, and enriching his mind with a variety of subjects, including the Bible. Four years later, he is released. His mother has died, leaving him some money and a house in am area scheduled for demolition.
Víctor visits his mother's grave, where he encounters Elena at her father's burial service. Without identifying himself, he briefly offers her his condolences. Before leaving the cemetery he encounters Sancho's wife Clara, who has arrived too late for Elena's service. They leave together and she visits his apartment. They establish a tentative relationship.
Elena, now off drugs and operating an orphanage, tells David of her encounter with Víctor. David stops by Víctor's house and warns him not to go near his wife. Víctor challenges him to prevent him from doing whatever he wants, but David punches him below the belt. David leaves, but he sees Clara arriving and watches from a distance. Clara, drawn by Víctor's enthusiasm and good looks, agrees to teach him how to make love while pampering him with gifts and affection. She eventually falls in love with him.
Víctor is accepted as a volunteer by the orphanage, which accepts the qualifications he earned in prison and discovers he is very good with the children. Elena objects, but can offer no compelling argument against Víctor.
David continues to trail Víctor and discovers that he works at his wife's orphanage. He confronts Víctor again, and Víctor denies responsibility for firing the shot that put him in a wheelchair. He demonstrates how Sancho made him squeeze the trigger because Sancho knew David was having an affair with Clara. Afterwards, David tells his wife what Víctor said, admitting that he was having an affair with Clara. Elena is disgusted, but still plans to leave the orphanage to get away from Víctor. Víctor tells Elena that his original plan of revenge was to become the world's greatest lover, make love to Elena all night long, and then abandon her, but that he now loves her too much to do so.
Víctor tells Clara that they should stop meeting, and they break up. While Víctor is working overnight at the orphanage, Elena arrives to remove her belongings and offers Víctor a night of passion on condition he never contacts her again. Elena then tells David about this night of infidelity. She tells him she will remain his wife because he needs her more than Víctor does. David is nevertheless intent on avenging himself against Víctor.
Clara, unable to bear Sancho's abuse any longer, leaves him in a violence scene, leaving him bloodied. David arrives and helps Sancho clean his wounds before showing Sancho photographs he has been taking of Víctor and Clara. Sancho and David drive to Víctor's house, arriving just as Clara has finished writing Víctor a farewell letter. Sancho and Clara hold each other at gunpoint and fire. Clara falls dead and Sancho is wounded. Sancho finally kills himself.
At the end, David narrates a letter written to his wife from Miami, where he is spending Christmas with some friends, apologizing for the way everything turned out. At the orphanage, a pregnant Elena goes into labor and on the way to the hospital, she and Víctor get stuck in heavy traffic. Víctor is reminded of the circumstances of his own birth, and tells his unborn child that the Spanish people no longer live in fear as they did at the time of his birth.

Tags: revenge, psychological, murder

Review:
One of Almodovar's favourite conceits is the use of old TV and movie images as ironic commentary on our modern lives.
He is the film's real victor, overcoming the misfortune of the shooting and his own sexual imbecility to attain true happiness in America.
The plot is almost literally circular, beginning and ending with childbirth in a wheeled vehicle, and Victor's life-defining moment hinging on the circular bus ride which brings him back to the identical spot where he started, a payphone on the Calle Eduardo Dato.
Voyeurism can be innocent and healthy (young Victor watching Elena in her apartment) but becomes sick when the watcher is impotent and jealous (David filming the Victor-Clara couplings).
Grabbing a solid and original story, Pedro Almodovar creates a movie that revolves around a strange set of characters, and on the process gives an excellent essay on the effect time has on people's lives.
Great music, cinematography and direction give this movie an even more satisfying look, and make this a well-achieved movie that ends up being the first part of an unofficial trilogy of Almodovar's best works..
Sometimes I see Almodovar as a kind of Victor Hugo of cinema because he makes various complicated scenes not coherently inserted in the film that you should put in order step by step.
The Italian actress Francesca Neri is David's wife, and young Liberto Rabal is Victor, the man supposedly spoiling the lives of others, and strong lover.
Almodovar has always been the king of kitsch, the naughty, the pervert (who isn't anyway?), the generator of endless dirty language conversations, the good the bad and the ugly of the movie world.
Almodóvar seems to be following the rule-"Stick to one thing and do it well."  As usual he was able to create great characters and involve good symbolism based on a story which is full of ridiculously impossible coincidences and the sometimes predictable, but always irrational behavior of the characters.As in some of his other films, the story involves characters who seem to be completely led by fate and always bound to their destinies.
In the end, noone is innocent and all are victims, but there is a romantic hope for a brighter future and a new start at life.I liked the new set of actors and actresses that were cast, and I would hope to see them cast differently in another film.
Once again, Almodovar doesn not fail to demonstrate his masterful skills in casting intricate webs of human relationships of lust and love and his superb cinematic story-telling.In the very limited timeframe of slightly longer than one and a half hour, the audience is treated to a fast-paced and mysterious love pentagon which stems from one person to another person and which eventually cast a web tangling the five main characters inexplicably.
Pedro Almodóvar changed the way of making cinema in Spain; and doing it, he has impressed movie watchers around the world.
About passion, well, it occupies a place in every person, but is not always shown; Almodóvar takes care of that.He introduces you to the characters in the story, then he starts to develop a plot that you're going to see, even if it is predictable.
I enjoyed the way Almodovar served the story, one bit at a time, allowing for all the events to culminate in a very satisfying ending.
Liberto Rabal gives a fine performance and Javier Bardem (of Jamon, Jamon and Boca a Boca), delivers yet another great acting achievement.I saw this film both in the theater and on video.
Great story, Almodovar style, a different perspective of Madrid, great acting, but Liberto Rabal stands out amongst all of it.
The political statement about the changes in Spain over the 26 years of the movie, the full circle of birth, and the triumph of innocence over evil, were beautifully displayed in this movie.The European filmakers have always done it better and now with the growth of the independents, maybe the Americans are catching on that in this director's medium called film, the actors are really secondary or even tertiary to the script and the director.
Often one or more characters is a generator of public stories; here it is a wounded cop who becomes a wheelchair basketball star.He's not my favorite Spaniard, and this isn't my most valued of his films.
But its hard to better than any visit from Pedro.Its an honestly vaginal world (with the connection among several layers being there) and I suppose therefore most women will actually think the story matters.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching..
OK, some of the acting is bad and the plot is totally unbelievable...but I consider it one of Almodovar's best films.
And this is what this film is all about: a love story, which reaches and overcomes the limits of an impossible dream.Almodovar, based on Ruth Rebel's novel, creates an imposing, intense film in his own, familiar to us, magical way.
The Carne Tremula (Live Flesh in its English translation) appears throughout the film aroused, with powerful hot and warm colours like yellow, orange and red -colours that one feels that they have taken over the whole picture throughout the movie-.
Is it love a desperate voice of fear and loneliness or is it the absolute enosis of the Live Flesh?When Victor says to Clara that their affair should come to an end she cries out `Please, don't leave me, I won't ask you anything, just let me love you.' The language used in the film is an unshameless and graceful manifest to the human eroticism.
This particular modern, everyday language comes in contrast to the non-vulgar and sensual love scenes and even to the traditional erotic Spanish music.Once more, Almodovar highlights the role of the feminine -a characteristic that is present, apparent and obvious to the majority of his films-, as the whole world seems to unfurl around women.
Javier Bardem shows excellent moments of talent which are going to certified on his later role choices (including the magnificent Before the Night Falls of Julian Schanabel, in 2000, which brought him broader recognition and many awards.) Liberto Rabal, from the other hand, represents the typical male, almost iconic model, of an Almodovar film, representing fittingly every woman's ( or man's one could suggest) fantasy.The desperate scream of the protagonists is identified with the tragic lyrics of the main song of the film `Somos un sueòo impossible'.
As the the film progresses, by surprising plot-driven action rather than as the natural reactions of characters whom the viewer 'understands', sex is presented as the source of all love, desire, angst and jealousy.
In this way Almodovar will definitely mess with your mind; by the end of the movie your judgments on the characters will make a total about-face.However, the first time viewer should be warned not to take the circumstances too seriously.
like most of Almodovar's movie, Great music, nice cinematography and strange plot and roles make up this movie.
After leaving jail, Víctor is still in love with Elena, but she's married to the former cop -now basketball player- who became paralysed by a shot from Víctor's gun...(plot), Almodovar is a master story writer--he knows exactly what to tell the viewer and when to tell it, the film was great, the film takes your mind inside the mind of women and men ..
inside the mind of infidelity and relationships, the film really a unique it was a combination of social issues in one line!, the acting was super especially by Javier Bardem, the opening scenes with Penelope Cruz was superb, Overall it's a nice movie to see.don't miss this film!,.
This time around, Almodóvar fabricates a complicated story of revenge, steamy trysts and deadly misunderstandings that hit all the right notes, even if those notes are all sharped and flatted; yet, it's his most mature film.The movie begins in 1970 with a theatrical birth in the back of a city bus; being welcomed into the world is Victor Plaza, the son of a prostitute (Penélope Cruz).
Jump 20 years into the future: Victor (Liberto Rabal) is meeting Elena (Francesca Neri), a drug addict, for an impromptu date after hooking up a week previously.
But when he is released, he finds that David and Elena have married, leading to a series of events that could only be found in a classy telenovela.No matter how breathy and melodramatically enhanced the plot may at first sound, it is surely one of Almodóvar's most toned down films, both in terms of style and personality.
Looking back, the film marked a turn in his career, shifting towards heavyweights like All About My Mother in 1999 and Talk to Her in 2002.Not to suggest that Live Flesh is sapped of any pleasures.
This Pedro Almodovar movie was the second film – after The Flower of My Secret – where he toned things down and went for a more serious approach.
Victor (Liberto Rabal), her son, is infatuated with Elena (Italian beauty Francesca Neri), but she is just a junkie who is more interested in seeing her dealer than him.
Victor is a proletarian guy, born on bus by a mother working as a prostitute (shown in an overlong introduction and pointless to the rest of the movie) who falls for Elena, an upper class junkie.
David gets paralyzed by a gunshot and ends up married to Elena.Victor gets to jail, but he is still obsessed with Elena and continues stalking her once he gets out four years later.
Already unconvincing, the story takes a turn for the absurd when Elena shows a growing interest for Victor, who continues to confuse obsession with love.In the meantime, Victor is also sexually involved with Clara, Sancho's wife (very believable plot twist).
It sounds like a demented plot, but I am not making it up.Probably one of the weakest Almodovar's films, it contains the inevitable steamy sex scene, which are Almodovar trademark and it is disgraced even further by an absurd "happy ending", which sees stalker and prey happily together, while Elena is giving birth to their child on a car (back to the start, in a sort of circular move).P.S. to make the matter worse, throughout the whole movie Victor blames Elena, David and everybody else for his misfortunes, conveniently avoiding to notice that the whole drama arose from his obsession..
Victor gets a job working at the orphanage funded and operated by Elena (but he's not stalking her, no) and begins to romance Clara, the battered wife of Sancho.Each of the five characters, unavoidably intertwined, is complex and morally ambiguous.
All of the actors are fantastic, particularly Francesca Neri, as Elena, and Liberto Rabal, as Victor.
Live Flesh belongs to a trilogy of Almodovar films which also includes Talk to Her & All About My Mother.
But clearly, the groundwork is being laid for Talk to Her, Almodovar's most accomplished film.In general, I liked the performances, but I felt the actor who played Victor was a little too young for the part.
Though he is exceedingly easy on the eyes, he didn't quite have the charisma that Banderas demonstrated in Tie Me Up (a very similar character in an earlier Almodovar film).
Almodovar is the best women director of the actual movie scene.
This film opens in Franco's Spain in the 1970s as baby Victor is born on a bus.
Twenty years later Spain is a different country but Victor's life isn't great and it is about to get worse.
A week after his first sexual encounter he believes he is now in a relationship; unfortunately the woman, Elena, feels differently; when he goes to see her she tells him to leave and threatens him with a gun.
The cast does a fine job; most notably Liberto Rabal, as Victor; Javier Bardem, David; Francesca Neri, as Elena and Angela Molina as Clara; each make their characters feel like real people.
Overall I'd definitely recommend this to fans of other Almodóvar films or people wanting a grown up drama featuring interesting but believable characters.These comments are based on watching the film in Spanish with English subtitles..
In 1990's he was highly appreciated in the world of cinema and in 1997 he brought us a new growth story Live Flesh.In 1970's a woman gives birth to a boy in a vacant bus: at the very same night the boy is named Victor and he is granted the ability of traveling via Spanish buses free of charge.
A series of events and coincidence lead the characters to their own paths, which walk into each other as time goes by.Pedro Almodovar has never been my number one personal favorite, but I've always enjoyed his films: he is a very good storyteller plus his films are hilarious portrayals of the macho-society.
After Live Flesh he made All About My Mother and Talk to Her, both of which are amazing films and I consider the latter to be his true masterpiece.With regards to the philosophy of film in the work of Almodovar, I see existentialism behind it.
Such as David getting into the accident and falling in love with Elena, because of Victor's choice.The existentialism in Almodovar's films is especially from Jean-Paul Sartre.
It is up to you to give life a meaning."Live Flesh is basically a growth story - the growth story of Victor, from his birth to his twenties and the film particularly portrays the growth of his love.
Almodovar's "Live Flesh" (Carne Tremula) is a very solid movie, probably the most solid and mature screenplay of this original Spanish filmmaker.The only thing that may disappoint viewers, specially those familiar with his work, is the fact that "Live Flesh" seems to feed off his previous work.
Very big.Even those who dislike the humorous Almodovar might like some or all of his late films.
Of the Almodovar films I've seen, he applies his themes in the most humorous, but not lighthearted way imaginable, so that the viewer is aware that he is watching something totally ridiculous, but seems inclined to want to believe it.
Four years later Victor is released from prison, David is in a wheelchair and has married a clean Elena while Sancho is still trying to keep his relationship with wife Carla together.
Victor's release brings these individuals back into contact and unleashes the emotions of that night again.Having just watched Volver and found it to be slightly below the standards of many of Almodóvar's other films, I decide to revisit Live Flesh.
Here the film moves quickly from Victor's birth into the fateful event that sees him jailed and we find ourselves in a serious story that is well delivered.
I want to talk about how he turns this story into a tale I believed in but somehow he does; perhaps because he keeps it so raw and intense throughout, infecting even the sex with the emotions that exist within each character so that even those acts are borne of so much more than desire.Almodóvar also draws impressive performances from his cast which is a great help in pulling off the intensity of the tale.
'Carne Trémula' is another good film from Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar.
Sancho got in a struggle with Víctor, a gun goes off.Four years later David, hit by the bullet, is in a wheelchair and married to Elena.
Like most of the Spanish movies I have watched, it has sexuality on it.
Like all Almodovar's movies, this one also features desperate characters who cope with loneliness.
After his jail time Victor returns for Elena, but things have changed.
Victor also becomes involved with the other cop's (Sancho) wife and she (Clara) starts to fall in love with him.
Sancho (after a tip from jealous David) and Clara meet each other at Victor's house, which again leads to a shoot out.
In all of Almodovar's movies the characters are nice to watch (both in acting and appearance).
Live Flesh or Carne Trémula in Espanol is a Spanish romantic drama thriller film that is written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar.It stars Liberto Rabal, Javier Bardem, and Francesca Neri.
The story then makes another leap to four years later: Victor is in prison, while Elena, no longer on drugs, runs a disadvantaged children's shelter and is married to wheelchair-bound David.
Fate interweaves the tangled interrelationships of all into a complex tapestry of destiny and guilt.Live Flesh is definitely enigmatic as this implausible story with unbelievable twists and turns definitely provides nothing more but mystery and entertainment to the viewer.Despite of its great cinematography,the film basically tries to deviate itself from the common films shown in cinema.But nevertheless,Almodóvar triumphs as he manages to amaze the viewer with his so-called "tricks" as outrageous occurrences feels like realistic.Overall,it become a movie that attacks the mainstream by without any elements of a mainstream feature and it succeeds!!!.
Pedro Almodovar has a distinct style of story-telling and character development.
Pedro Aldomovar is seen as a real genius and personally I think that one film is better than the other but this movie from 1997 certainly belong to the best the Spanish infant terrible has made.
It is a film about passion and desire, it is a melodrama that makes more sense than life itself, it presents five characters whom we get to know by the end of the film better than our own family.The story has one prologue, one first chapter taking place twenty years later, more chapters in the contemporaneity (meaning 1997) and a prologue a few months later.
As in many other of his films he makes no moral judgment about the actions of his characters, but we feel that he cares about them all, and would like to make us care too.
Javier Bardem performs here in one of the best roles of his early career, and the rest of the team including Liberto Rabal, Francesca Neri, and Ángela Molina define each their characters, each of them with his or her own passion and aspiration to love.