The psychological study that is the author's trademark is reduced to superficial and negative motivation - lust, guilt, revenge, escape.
Live Flesh(Carne trémula)
✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
Spain, France · 1997
Rated R · 1h 43m
Director Pedro Almodóvar
Starring Liberto Rabal, Francesca Neri, Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz
Genre Drama, Romance, Thriller
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After having casual sex, Victor wants to see Elena again, but she is uninterested. Their heated exchange alerts cops, causing a standoff where Victor severely injures a cop with an accidental gunshot. Years later, Victor takes revenge on Elena and the policemen who put him behind bars on that fateful day.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
Live Flesh isn't terrible. It's accomplished and watchable.
Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt
Some of the action is as lurid as the title, but passionate performances and ingenious visuals make this the most absorbing movie by Spanish director Almodvar since his great comedy "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown."
ReelViews by James Berardinelli
Everything (not just the flesh) is vibrant with life.
Chicago Reader by Lisa Alspector
It's all very clever but not really provocative - though a layer of political subtext may make the scenario seem funnier and more meaningful.
Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum
Almodovar is positively mature, adapting a novel by Ruth Rendell so deftly that the plot now also describes the invigorating and sometimes disorienting effects of democracy after long years of repression under the Franco regime.
San Francisco Chronicle by Mick LaSalle
Live Flesh lacks freshness.
Austin Chronicle by Russell Smith
Possibly due to the story's origin as a Ruth Rendell novel, this is the most coherent, viewer-friendly narrative he's ever filmed.
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