''Live Flesh'' () is a 1997 erotic romantic thriller

drama Drama is the specific Mode (literature), mode of fiction Mimesis, represented in performance: a Play (theatre), play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on Radio drama, radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a g ...

film written and directed by

Pedro Almodóvar Pedro Almodóvar Caballero (; born 25 September 1949) is a Spanish film director, screenwriter and author. His films are distinguished by Melodrama (film genre), melodrama, irreverent humour, bold colour, glossy décor, quotations from popular c ...

, based on the 1986 novel of the same name by English author Ruth Rendell. The film stars Javier Bardem, Francesca Neri, Liberto Rabal, Ángela Molina and José Sancho, with Penélope Cruz and Pilar Bardem.

Plot

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

, Christmas 1970. The Spanish State has declared a

state of emergency A state of emergency is a situation in which a government is empowered to put through policies that it would normally not be permitted to do, for the safety and protection of its citizens. A government can declare such a state before, during, o ...

curtailing civil liberties. A young prostitute, Isabel Plaza Caballero, gives birth on a bus to a son, Víctor. Twenty years later, Víctor shows up uninvited at the apartment of Elena, a drug addict with whom he had sex a week earlier, expecting another date with her. Elena angrily orders him 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. After a neighbour calls the police, two officers, Sancho and David, arrive on the scene. Sancho is an unstable alcoholic who suspects his wife Clara of infidelity, while David is sensible and righteous. When the officers enter the apartment, Víctor holds Elena hostage at gunpoint. David tries to appease him and get him to drop his gun, but Sancho repeatedly threatens Víctor. Finally, David gets Sancho and then Víctor to put down their guns. David instructs Elena to flee. Sancho then lunges for Víctor, and as they wrestle for the gun, David is shot. Two years later, Víctor, in jail, learns through a televised wheelchair basketball match that David, now partially paralysed from the gunshot, has become a star player at the Summer Paralympics and is married to Elena. Víctor is released four years later, vowing revenge on Elena and David. His mother has died, leaving him some money and a house in an area scheduled for demolition. Víctor visits his mother's grave, where he spots Elena at her father's burial service. Without identifying himself, he briefly offers her his condolences. He then meets Sancho's wife Clara, who has arrived late for Elena's service. They leave together and she visits his apartment. They establish a tentative relationship. Elena, now clean from drugs and operating an orphanage, tells David of her encounter with Víctor. David stops by Víctor's house and demands that he stay away from Elena. As he leaves, David sees Clara arriving and watches from a distance. Clara agrees to teach Víctor how to make love and eventually falls in love with him. Víctor is later accepted as a volunteer by the orphanage, as he earned a teaching diploma by correspondence during his time in jail, much to Elena's chagrin. David continues to trail Víctor and discovers that he works at Elena's orphanage. He confronts Víctor again, and Víctor insists that Sancho forced his finger on the trigger because Sancho knew David was having an affair with Clara. David tells Elena what Víctor said, admitting his affair with Clara. Elena is disgusted but still plans to leave the orphanage to evade Víctor. Víctor tells Elena that his original revenge plan was to become the world's greatest lover, have sex with Elena all night long, and then abandon her. Víctor breaks up with Clara, devastating her. While Víctor is working overnight at the orphanage, Elena arrives to retrieve her belongings and offers Víctor a night of passion on condition he never contacts her again. Elena then reveals her infidelity to David. She tells him she will remain his wife because he needs her more than Víctor does. David is nevertheless adamant about exacting revenge on Víctor. Tired of Sancho's constant

abuse Abuse is the act of improper usage or treatment of a person or thing, often to unfairly or improperly gain benefit. Abuse can come in many forms, such as: physical or verbal maltreatment, injury, assault, violation, rape, unjust practices, ...

, Clara announces she will leave him. He confronts her and she shoots him. David arrives and helps Sancho clean his wound before showing him 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 before a wounded Sancho kills himself. In a voiceover, David reads a letter written to Elena from Miami, where he is spending Christmas with friends, apologising for how 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.

Cast

Reception

Produced by El Deseo, Ciby 2000, and France 3 Cinéma, Almodóvar's twelfth film opened in Spain on 10 October 1997 on 125 screens. It grossed $800,000 in its opening weekend, becoming the first Spanish film of the year to top the Spanish box office. By its third weekend, it had grossed a record $2.9 million from 700,000 admissions. It went on to be the second highest-grossing Spanish film film of the year behind '' Airbag'' with a gross of 790 million Spanish pesetas. It had its US premiere on 12 October 1997 at the New York Film Festival. It grossed $1.8 million in the United States and Canada. ''Live Flesh'' enjoyed mostly positive reviews in Spain, even by critics who had previously dismissed Almodóvar's work criticizing the plot structure of his films. José Arroyo in '' Sight and Sound'' praised the film's "emotional pitch: raw, fearful, passionate", its brilliant cinematic qualities and the high standard of acting by the five leads. In ''

Neon Neon is a chemical element; it has symbol Ne and atomic number 10. It is the second noble gas in the periodic table. Neon is a colorless, odorless, inert monatomic gas under standard conditions, with approximately two-thirds the density of ...

'' magazine, Martin Aston concluded that "sexy movies are rarely this thrilling, thrillers never this sexy—and the two seldom combine so movingly". On the

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website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, the film holds an approval rating of 80% based on reviews from 46 critics, with an average rating of 7.1/10. The website reads, "''Live Flesh'' surveys the fallout from an act of violence with a mature melodrama that sees Pedro Almodóvar working in surprisingly restrained form."

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 69 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Accolades

, - , rowspan = "5" align = "center" , 1998 , , rowspan = "3" , 12th Goya Awards , , Best Actor , , Javier Bardem , , , , rowspan = "3" , , - , Best Supporting Actress , , Ángela Molina , , , - , Best Supporting Actor , , José Sancho , , , - , rowspan = "2" , 11th European Film Awards , , colspan = "2" , Best Film , , , , rowspan = "2" , , - , Best European Actor , , Javier Bardem , , , - , align = "center" , 1999 , , 52nd British Academy Film Awards , , colspan = "2" , Best Film Not in the English Language , , , ,

Notes

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Live Flesh (Film) 1997 films 1997 independent films 1997 romantic drama films 1997 thriller films 1990s erotic drama films 1990s erotic thriller films 1990s French films 1990s Italian-language films 1990s romantic thriller films 1990s Spanish films 1990s Spanish-language films Ciby 2000 films El Deseo films Erotic romance films Films about adultery Films about disability in Spain Films about people with paraplegia or tetraplegia Films based on British novels Films based on crime novels Films directed by Pedro Almodóvar Films featuring a Best Supporting Actor Goya Award–winning performance Films produced by Agustín Almodóvar Films scored by Alberto Iglesias Films set in 1970 Films set in 1990 Films set in 1992 Films set in 1996 Films set in Madrid Films shot in Madrid Films with screenplays by Jorge Guerricaechevarría France 3 Cinéma films French erotic drama films French erotic thriller films French films about revenge French independent films French romantic drama films French romantic thriller films Italian-language French films Italian-language Spanish films Spanish erotic drama films Spanish erotic thriller films Spanish films about revenge Spanish independent films Spanish romantic drama films Spanish romantic thriller films Spanish-language French films Spanish-language independent films Spanish-language romantic drama films Spanish-language thriller films Warner Española films