CARNE TREMULA (1997, Spanish) by Pedro Almodovar
"Those who do not drink believe they can solve any problem by not drinking".
If you like Pedro Almodovar, look forward to "Carne Tremula", his latest movie that just opened in Italy (and, I guess, in Spain). Almodovar's last films, such as "Atame" (TIE ME UP! TIE ME DOWN!), "Tacones Lejanos" and "Kika" looked sometimes as if the director felt the need to somehow top his previous efforts in shocking and outgrossing the audience. His latest so far, "El flor del mi secreto", was the opposite: deep, moving and almost completely free from Almodovar's trademark "scandal" flavor. "Carne Tremula" (a rough translation could be "Shivering Flesh") marks the director's return to what he does best: off-the-wall melodrama, with witty dialogue and a feeling of innocence that covers no matter what perversion or scandal. The story is nowhere as erratic or poorly built as in some of his previous efforts; the plot is loosely based on a Ruth Rendell novel which provides the basic structure, but the whole film feels totally Almodovar's: romantic, excessive -but not excessively so, if you understand what I mean- and also extremely funny and moving. The movie starts with the birth of the protagonist -Victor- on a bus in Madrid on the night that general Franco's regime declares curfew. We then cut forward twenty years and meet him as a young man trying to trace down a girl with whom he's had casual sex in a night club toilet the night before. The girl -played by italian actress Francesca Neri- lets him in her house by mistake, assuming he is the local pusher who should provide her some pot. From that moment on, the plot starts spinning so fast and unpredictable that it would really be a shame to recount it. "Carne Tremula" offers that kind of radical romanticism that was the backbone of "Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!" but it doesn't share with that movie the lack of spontaneity: it does not feel as something *designed* to be radical and it is therefore much more effective. It also features an interestingly Kieslowskian attention to the power of chance and coincidence. This helps a lot in keeping the plot going effortlessly through a notable richness of events and twists. Great performances from everyone, although I particularly liked Angela Molina as a middle-aged woman who is afraid of her violent yet loving husband and therefore goes for younger boys: she reminded me of the great Anne Bancroft performance as Mrs. Robinson in THE GRADUATE. The best from Pedro since "La ley del deseo" (The Law of Desire) and "Matador".
****
alberto.farina@iol.it
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