04/03/98
MOVIE REVIEW: Live Flesh
Everyone has a secret in this romantic comedy

By MICHAEL JANUSONIS
Journal-Bulletin Arts Writer

***1/2 (out of five)
Starring Javier Bardem, Francesca Neri, Liberto Rabal, Angela Molina, Jose Sancho. A Goldwyn Films release written and directed by Pedro Almodovar, from the novel by Ruth Rendell. In Spanish with English subtitles. At the Avon Cinema. Rated R, contains violence, sexual situations, nudity, profanity, adult themes. Running time: 101 minutes.

Spain's irrepressible bad-boy filmmaker Pedro Almodovar, whose movies include Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down!, is up to his clever tricks again on the wayward ways of love in the provocatively titled Live Flesh.

What goes around comes around in the affairs of the heart in Live Flesh, often with unexpectedly comical results. Although Almodovar relies a little too heavily on coincidence to make Live Flesh come alive, usually the results are ironic enough to make for a snappy payoff. On the other hand, as all the players start coming together toward the end of the film, the final moments slip from cleverly outrageous into melodramatic potboiler. And then Almodovar adds a political statement, just to touch all bases.

It can be a bit overwhelming, yet for most of its running time Live Flesh offers a stew that's witty and fast, if not as funny as some of Almodovar's previous films.

This is one of those movies where "he loves her, but she loves someone else who has been involved with the other guy's wife who is in love with . . ." Well, no sense trying to explain too much. Part of the fun of Live Flesh is figuring out who's involved with whom behind who's back. It's not as complicated as it sounds. But everyone has a secret. Everyone is involved in one way or another with everyone else.

It all begins with a not-quite virgin birth at Christmastime -- the mother is a prostitute and the baby is born on a bus in the lonely streets of 1970 Madrid, where martial law has just been declared and civil liberties have been suspended.

Cut ahead 20 years and the now grown-up baby Victor (Liberto Rabal), who has been given a lifetime pass by the city transport company for having been born on one of their buses, is riding through the streets on a bus. (One of the film's many bright little touches is having Victor travel everywhere by bus.)

This night he's trying to find the pretty Elena (Francesca Neri), to whom he lost his virginity the night before. Young and inexperienced at love, Victor wants to see her again. Elena can barely remember him. But Victor gains entry into her apartment by a lucky accident that proves unlucky for him.

Soon there's accidental gunfire, the police are called and more not-so accidental gunfire erupts. One officer is left paralyzed and Victor is sent to prison for an accidental crime that may not be so accidental.

Whims of chance

Not everything is as it first seems on the surface in Live Flesh, including the relationship between the two police officers who answer the call to Elena's apartment.

One (Javier Bardem) seems a straight arrow. The other (Jose Sancho) is a hard-drinking wife beater who suspects his wife of being unfaithful. But there's more going on here than what you'd at first suspect. Live Flesh is based on Ruth Rendell's novel about the whims of chance and destiny, and there certainly are a lot of whims once things get rolling.

Through chance meetings and coincidences, the fresh-from-prison Victor sets out to seek revenge on Elena and the paralyzed policeman she married, blaming them for his unhappiness. For a long time Victor seems like a scary stalker, learning where Elena works as a volunteer and benefactor at a children's shelter, then volunteering to work there himself.

But the plot has many more surprises to spring, including a romantic liaison for Victor with the middle-aged Clara (Angela Molina), whose unhappy marriage has left her looking for love and comfort. She winds up tutoring Victor in the lessons of love . . . and falling for him herself.

Less cheerful

Almodovar plays it all at a fast clip, with lots of ironic twists as the hapless Victor tries to get closer to the woman who has obsessed his life. Rabal makes a sympathetic hero, once we figure what his character is up to. And Bardem, one of Spain's leading actors, as the paralyzed David, slowly exposes character shadings and dimensions to create a complex figure.

Live Flesh plays like a wild comedy of errors for a long time, although as the plot faces resolution it slides into melodrama and its coincidences don't seem so cheerful.

Still, it takes a more honest look at romance than most films as it travels the road where the heart leads.