LIVE FLESH

INTRODUCTION: Hmm I think I may have lost the battle over "Deep Impact" even though I was supporting Lizard by the end although I still don't like the film. In my defence I'd just like to say that it's hard to develop a sense of perspective over films like "Deep Impact" if you are a git in London or Mutt in Birmingham as you do get to gorge yourself on a lot films that contain the answer to life's many mysteries and are mystically illuminating about the nature of the universe, such as this, Pedro Almodovar's latest film. To avoid confusion, I would like to mention at this point that I am not Guardian film "critic" Richard Williams, neither am I dead, and hope I managed to give "Deep Impact" a harsh but fair review rather than dismissing it out of hand, but all the same I greatly prefered this movie and here follows my four paragraphs. 

The audience sat through this film too without spitting on the ceiling, crunching popcorn and talking through the film, but then of course the ceiling was out of reach. I don't like popcorn, and I was the only one at the screening in Electric Cinema Screen 2 and hence had no one to talk to. Lizard may have a point about more people waiting to see "Deep Impact" than all the other less commercial films of the week put together, which is a shame really because this is a good film. Spain's first entry into 'The Lizard's Lair', and oddly enough an adaptation of a Ruth Rendell mystery, I hope that this doesn't indicate a lack of native writing talent. 

SYNOPSIS: Victor (Rabal) an inexperienced young loner, David (Bardem) an earnest career cop, David's drunken partner Sancho, Sancho's beaten wife Clara, and Elena (Cruz) an out of control junkie, find their lives inexorably linked one night when a police bust goes horribly wrong. 

REVIEW: A dark and twisted tale of sex, violence and brutal revenge. I've never read Ruth Rendell's work so I couldn't say how close this film is to the original text, but it has been transposed to Madrid so seamlessly that it is impossible to imagine it occurring anywhere else. Sorry to reinforce cultural stereotypes but it is hard to imagine English characters embodying the passion that one so easily associates with the Mediterranean temperament (OK I know that Madrid isn't exactly Mediterranean). The characters are more than stereotypical ciphers however, coming alive in the hands of a brilliant cast, subtly portraying hidden motives and complex interrelationships of the five distinctive habitants of Madrid. 
Almodovar has demonstrated a new level of maturity with this his tenth picture, "Live Flesh" is by far his least camp and most politically aware film to date. With a prologue set in the dark days, assuming there were some light days, of Franco's repressive regime, Almodovar tackles Spain's political past, a subject he has always steered clear of in past films such as "Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down" & "Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown". 

"Deep Impact" and its ilk get enough publicity as it is, and will continue to do so until Lizard manages to get trailers banned. I have always considered it my duty as Mutt, film critic to the net, to highlight the best and worst of the more obscure film releases, well that and of course to dismiss blockbusters with a few well chosen smart-arse remarks. Lizard is right, storytelling is an essential part of any civilisation, I omit the word healthy as I'm not sure our civilisation would fit into that category, but for me I find it far easier to relate to a realistic character-driven tale such as this than to the effects-laden mock heroics of "Deep Impact". Maybe that's my problem but I'm sure I can't be the only one, I just wish the 'multiplexi' would cater for this, does the word "minority" ever occur to them, probably not and this is why I've always had a problem with the concepts of democracy and capitalism which "Deep Impact" revels in. 

A thoroughly pleasing tale of bloody vengeance, if indeed such a tale can be considered pleasing. 

Mutt's Rating: ****

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