Live Flesh [DVD] [1998]

As a young man, Victor believes that a one-off sexual encounter with a beautiful Italian junkie is something more than it is, and pesters her to such an extent that she draws a gun on him in order to get him to leave. A struggle ensues. The gun accidentally goes off, and although noone is hurt, it brings the unwelcome attention of two policemen. Another struggle ensues. Another shot is fired. One of the policemen is paralysed from the waist down. From then on, all four of their lives become tragically entwined; with deception and misunderstanding leading towards bitterness and envy. Inevitably, the lies are stripped away, unwanted truths are revealed, and all the various dilemmas are resolved amidst a scene of emotional and actual carnage.

This must sound like heady stuff, almost melodramatic? It is. This is Almodovar, after all. There is the usual complex plotting that reveals the strains that pull apart and bring together relationships while the emotional lives of the characters are laid bare. There is the relentless drive to resolve the emotional dilemmas while avoiding sentimentality. In short, there are all the usual touches that one expects from Almodovar, including the wonderful acting from the cast. Wonderful! A film that will draw you back again and again and again.

The relationships are those of family, birth and adoptive, friends, lovers, spouses, the able bodied and the disabled, the law breaker and the enforcer. The characters grow with their newly liberated madrid.

Almodovar explores how one arrives at identity, and what can challenge it. His characters are complex, his dialogue well paced. He leads the viewer from compassion to frustration to sadness and back again through many and varied routes. His filming is evocative of madrid in the 1950s and today, always showing a great affection for his homeland.

Victor is born as Madrid regains democratic rule. A chance encounter with Elena shapes his life and that of David, both as individuals and as eachother's motivation for the choices they make. They save eachother, use each other, have complex loyalties and one's betryal is the other's honesty. The real strength of this film is that they live as people - like those people we have all shared bottles of wine, and "what to do next conversations" with. Chickflick? Not at all, Almodovar is fond of all his characters and all of their flaws, which makes this very rewarding viewing.

If none of this convinces you that you must see this film and see it again and tell all your friends to see it, then perhaps this will persuade you - it has the best scene on men watching sport together of any film i have ever seen.

Almodovar creates the juxtapostiton between beautifully filmed arthouse cinema and a typically over the top Rendell story. This makes for strange viewing as it is both compulsive viewing and over the top in equal measure. This is one of the most sexually charged pieces of cinema I have ever seen.