When Film Characters Came to Life Live Flesh / Carne Trémula (1997) by Pedro Almodóvar is not just a movie but rather a living and pulsating work of art full of love and betrayal, and focused around a changing Spain. It is built on the one of the novels by Ruth Rendell and, like other works by Almodóvar, it is filled with politics, sex, and history. The central characters intersect with personal and societal paradoxes, yet still, astonishingly convey an essence of age and timelessness. The characters are a mosaic of individual blurred facets, and a blurring between the roles and the performers to give the characters a shape of themselves is to be expected. The film begins with Victor in Liberto Rabal’s portrayal, being born on Madrid’s bus in the middle of emergency state in the year 1970. The emergency and disorganization of the surroundings during his birth is a clear indication of some of the factors, and a part of his life that are to be chaotic and full of passion, and are certain to bump with greater elements in the future. Rabal himself had the legacy of Francisco Rabal, one of the renowned actors in Spain, and for that reason his performance was considered an inheritance, and additionally, a way to pay homage to his grandfather.
Victor embodies a sense of deep sensitivity combined with impulsive recklessness. He spent months immersing himself in Victor ‘s character within the context of Madrid. He walked the shifting neighborhoods of the city while trying to capture the restlessness of a man trying to breathe within the disorder of political unease.
The audience connected to Victor on a deeper level, understanding Victor because he represented Spain. Having come from a dictatorship and struggling, Spain was just beginning to find her footing.
Elena: the transformation of Penelope Cruz
Elena is a character with limited screentime, but is definitely not invisible, as her performance captures our attention. She, like many others, is a woman struggling, and is deeply marked by the burdens of motherhood and addiction, followed by a slow, possible redemption. Making a cameo in the film, she gives birth to Victor and then, like other characters, vanishes but her presence stays behind like a haunting echo.
Cruz was just starting her career when she starred in the film. She had collaborated with other noted directors, but this was her first role that featured deep sensitivity and vulnerability. Most of the roles she was cast in featured a glamorous character, and she was not hesitant to say this is not what she focused on for this role. She deeply researched the character, studying and quietly observing women in Madrid clinics who, like Elena, suffered from addiction. Rowlands described her as aimless, wandering slowly like the rest of defeated women.
Elena’s narrative reflected the scars of Spain’s heroin crisis of the 80s. Audiences felt Cruz’s performance viscerally. In the most miniscule of screen time, she seemed to capture the agony of an entire generation.
David: The Wounded Hero Who Wasn’t
David, played by Javier Bardem, is arguably the most iconic character in the film. A policeman in Spain, he becomes paralyzed after an unfortunate showdown with Victor. Rather than grieving, he reinvents himself, becoming an acclaimed wheelchair basketball player. Publicly, he is viewed as a model of self-discipline. In reality, he is an undisguised, long-simmering cauldron of jealousy, hatred, and insecurities.
Transformative is how Bardem described this role. Early in his career, he devoted himself to rigorous physical conditioning, culminating in the athletic mastery of a wheelchair. In an effort to capture their pluck and wit, he transcended the confines of simulation. Later in his career, Bardem would admit the role transformed his thinking regarding the value of a physical body in performance. It illuminated the reality that one can embody strength without movement.
David’s character transformation seems to be the shift of a hero to a villain – an idol to a manipulator. This emotional burrn in the film, however, was the deftly executed and shocking performance of Bardem which showed an unexplained dual admiration and distrust even within the audience themselves. This numerous layered components to the performance made critics see it as a breakout performance. This also predated the fame Bardem acquired later.
Nothing about the film Live Flesh would be complete without the joined passion of Clara and Sancho, the fury of Sancho juxtaposing the win the focus of Clara, the free spirited woman attempting to escape the violence of being married to a cop while engaging in an affair with David. Almodovar seems to be a man with irrational obsession, and it is deeply flawed love which captured the passion intertwined in a tragic knot.
Ángela Molina, with the experience she had in the field, was able to bring forth the emotions associated with Clara very well. She explained the shoots with Bardem as “liberating and terrifying” with the reason being Almodovar’s desire to capture real emotions while caring for the actors, and Sancho being typecast in macho roles even with the focus being on the violence. The sign of a man who is imprisoned within rage with the woman of his fear was a gentle hint of vulnerability added to Sancho’s character.
The depths of depression, the search for tenderness juxtaposed with an oppressive relationship with the souse and domineering patriarch made the relationship of Clara and Sancho soaked with old cultural heritage for a vast demographic of Spanish people. The reality in the 1990’s Spain was captured much clearer by the actions of Sancho and Clara, as opposed to being just actors.
Legends of Backstage Stories
Live Flesh’s production was driven by a very particular drama. That was the case for Almodóvar who, as was his custom, was very particular about the sets, and wanted to film in the actual locations around the city. Madrid had recently gone through a significant transformation from a city under a dictatorship to a city in a democracy which posed it’s the very own set of challenges for the film’s crew like traffic interruptions and very curious bystanders who wanted to see how private scenes were shot.
One of the most memorable stories is the one about Bardem and the midnight rehearsals of the basketball scenes. For Bardem, it was important to master the scene’s so well, that it looked uncontrived, and a performance of sorts. Cruz, the other actress in the film told of how during the shoots of her last scene, for she was able to emote and she sobbed, and she did so for the reason that the character of Elena in her would linger long after the film was done.
When the Audience Became the Story
When the film was released, audiences had the chance to see much more that was captured through a lens. They saw, for the first time, a reflection of the history and alive. Many in the disabled community applauded the performance of Bardem, while many others believed Almodóvar had reached a pinnacle to his style of moving from highly suggestive drama to harsh everyday life.
There was a hotly debated morality of a character called Victor, who some saw as a national calamity while others believed he was suffering a terrible fate. Some couples were part of the conversation, asking themselves if they were more passionate like David and Clara, or more destroyed like Sancho and Clara. Unlike many discussions, this film was a part of real life and not some distant art.
Larger than Life Characters on a Screen
Victor’s inner turmoil, David’s wounded pride, Elena’s shattered optimism, and Clara’s boundless devotion were all reflections of the actors, amplified in a cinematic expression intertwined with Spain’s collective memory, its passions, and turmoil.
Portraying with unyielding performances blended with preparation and personal sacrifices, the actors meticulously shaped the distinction between fiction and reality. That is why, beyond the cinematic work of Almodovar, Live Flesh stands a cultural testament of a miror character that turned into lore, and lore that became, in all its painful reality, a Kaleidoscope.
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