Themes: Haunted By the Past, Redemption, Dangerous Attraction
Main Cast: Javier Bardem, Francesca Neri, Liberto Rabal, Ángela Molina, Jose Sancho, Penélope Cruz
Release Year: 1997
Country: ES/FR
Run Time: 120 minutes
Plot
This Pedro Almodóvar melodrama examines how several lives are changed by a single gunshot. Adapting the novel Live Flesh by British mystery author Ruth Rendell, Almodóvar has given the material a Spanish makeover with added political thrust. Beginning in 1970 in Franco's Madrid, when a prostitute (Penelope Cruz) gives birth to a son, Victor, the story leaps forward to contemporary Madrid. Wealthy diplomat's daughter Elena (Francesca Neri) is watching Luis Buñuel's The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de La Cruz (1955) while waiting for the arrival of her heroin dealer, and she buzzes Victor (Liberto Rabal) (with whom she made a date, then forgot about him) into the building. In the confusion that follows, two cops, David (Javier Bardem) and Sancho (Jose Sancho) arrive, and a gun goes off. 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. After his release, Victor visits his mother's grave and spots David and Elena at the cemetery -- where David meets philandering wife Clara (Angela Molina). Fate interweaves the tangled interrelationships of all into a complex tapestry of destiny and guilt. Shown at 1997 London and New York film festivals. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
Review
The second film in the "mature phase" of Pedro Almodovar's career, which began with La Flor de Mi Secreto two years earlier, Carne Tremula borrows chunks of its ornate plot from Ruth Rendell's novel Live Flesh. The film's political subtext and messy humanity, however, bear the distinctive stamp of its celebrated director. A deeply felt exploration of the tension between destiny and chance, human will and involuntary longing, Carne Tremula plays a delicate juggling act with competing subplots that slowly reveal their intimate connections. Unlike Paul Thomas Anderson's similarly themed but deeply flawed Magnolia, Almodovar's film zeroes in on its ideas subtly and precisely. The closest the director gets to his well-known affinity for garish excess and picturesque debilities is a few minutes of the haunted, haunting Francesca Neri in a fright wig, and several straight-faced scenes of stand-up guy Javier Bardem playing wheelchair basketball. Elsewhere, it's all tightly coiled passion and darkly libidinous will-to-power -- an urgent directive to get on with life. American audiences might not grasp all the levels of Almodovar's allegory about the legacy of Franco's reign, but most everyone should recognize the contrary passions that propel his characters to desperate acts and unlikely redemptions. Flawlessly acted by Bardem, Neri, Liberto Rabal, and Angela Molina, Carne Tremula offers a darker counterpoint to the tragicomic shadings of 1999's Todo Sobre Mi Madre. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
Twenty years later Victor Plaza (Liberto Rabal), now twenty years old, shows up for a date he made with Elena (Francesca Neri), the junkie daughter of a diplomat with whom he had sex a week earlier. Waiting for her dealer to arrive, Elena is not interested in seeing Victor and tells him to leave. Finally she gets a gun and orders him to leave. Enraged, Victor wrestles the gun from her, and in the process, Elena gets knocked out, and the gun goes off.
A neighbor hears the shot and calls police, and two cops respond to the report. The older cop Sancho (José Sancho) is an unstable alcoholic who suspects his wife of infidelity. The younger cop David (Javier Bardem) is more clean-cut, sober, and prefers to do things by the book. Through the window they catch sight of Victor physically struggling with Elena, and Sancho is ready to storm in, but David wants to call for a back-up. When they enter, Victor holds Elena hostage with her gun. David tries to calm him down and get him to drop his gun, but Sancho sabotages his efforts by continually threatening Victor. Finally, David puts his gun to Sancho's head, gets him and Victor to put down their guns and orders Elena to flee. Sancho then lunges for Victor, they wrestle for the gun, and another shot rings out, hitting David.
Six years later, Victor, in jail, happens to watch a wheelchair basketball match where the now paralyzed David is a star player, with his new wife Elena cheering him on from the sidelines. Victor has made good use of his time, taking a correspondence course in education, working out, and enriching his mind with a variety of subjects, including the Bible. Before he is released, his mother dies and leaves him some money and a house in the slums. One of his first stops after he gets out of jail is his mother's grave, where he encounters Elena at her father's funeral.
While leaving the cemetery he comes across Clara, Sancho's wife (Ángela Molina). Attracted by Victor's enthusiasm and good looks, Clara agrees to teach him how to make love, as well as pampering him with gifts and affection. Clara eventually falls in love with Victor.
Elena, now off drugs and operating an orphanage, tells David of her encounter with Victor. David stops by Victor's house and warns him not to go near his wife. Victor queries how he can do this, but David grabs his genitals and he doubles up. Victor begins to volunteer at the orphanage, which is happy to hire him because he has a degree in education and is very good with the children. Elena objects, but can't find a compelling reason to fire Victor. Elena begins making plans to leave the orphanage to get away from Victor.
Unable to allay his paranoia, David begins to trail Victor and finds out about his affair with Clara. He also finds out that Victor works at Elena's orphanage and confronts him again, whereby Victor tells him that it was Sancho who made Victor squeeze the trigger. Afterwards, David tells his wife what Victor said, and the revealing context that Sancho shot David because he was having an affair with Clara. Elena is disgusted, but still plans to leave the orphanage to get away from Victor. Victor 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 leave her hanging, but he still loves her too much to do so. Elena gives in to a night of passion on condition that Victor never contacts her again.
Elena tells David herself about her infidelity, and although she plans to stay with him, he plots his own revenge. Victor breaks up with Clara, who is totally distraught, unable to stand her abusive husband. After a vicious fight, she temporarily incapacitates Sancho and plans to leave or die in the attempt. David shows up at Sancho's place with photographic proof of Victor and Clara's affair. Sancho and David drive to Victor's house, where Sancho shoots and kills Clara, Clara wounds Sancho, and Sancho finally kills himself.
At the end David narrates a letter written from Miami to his wife, apologizing for the way everything turned out. While at the orphanage during Christmas time, a pregnant Elena goes in labor and while on the way to the hospital, she and Victor get stuck in heavy traffic. Victor is reminded of his own birth, and tells his unborn child that the fears of the Spanish have passed.
