"Carne Trémula" - "Live Flesh"

Spanish cinema certainly doesn't begin or end with Pedro Almodóvar but there's no denying his work is outstanding nor that he's probably the most familiar name to non-Spanish speakers. For me (and I'm sure I'm probably not the first to see this) something about his films changes in the mid-90s, between The Flower of My Secret (1995) and Live Flesh (1997). Maybe it was just bigger budgets, or he started using a different type of film, but the later works have a different, warmer(?) look and seem to have less chaotic storylines. This isn't a value judgement - I enjoy both periods equally - I'm just seeing a distinct stylistic difference; even if I can't put my finger on it exactly.

Released: 1997
Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Cast: Javier Bardem, Francesca Neri, Liberto Rabal, Ángela Molina, José Sancho, Pilar Bardem, Penélope Cruz

Carne Trémula is a film about relationships, friendship, betrayal, class strata, revenge and redemption. Above all (or perhaps that should be below all) it is about Spain. It starts, like many of Almodóvar's films, with strong female characters: in trouble, helping each other, browbeating men (or the intractable elements in society that their characters represent) and biting through umbilical cords. It also starts, rather more unusually, in Franco's Spain. Empty streets, downtrodden populace and a distinct lack of hedonism. Anyway, back to the umbilical cord. Our protagonist, Victor, is born on a bus that is virtually hijacked by an impromptu midwife on it's way back to the depot and rerouted to the hospital.

Cut forward 20 years and Victor is an earnest and inexperienced young man obsessed with Elena, the collaborator in his first and so far only sexual experience. He thinks they have a date, she's forgotten him already (Shades of Atame or Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down here). Cue a tense scene at her apartment in which she points a gun to make him leave. The gun goes off, police are called. The police in question are Sancho (heavy-drinking, wife-beating old-fashioned misogynist) and David (honest, reasonable, etc.) It all degenerates into a hostage situation in which Victor now has the gun and due to Sancho charging in a stray bullet paralyses David. Another 4 years forward and we find Sancho unchanged, David now a paraplegic basketball star and married to Elena, and Victor – more mature but still naïve – newly-released from prison. Now the story really begins: funerals, sex lessons, spliffs, an orphanage and mexican stand-offs. Great stuff. If you like that sort of thing. Which I do.

Throughout the film we are presented with the dynamics of the relationships between David and Elena and Sancho and his wife, Clara. And how the interruption of both those relationships by Victor results in everything changing forever. That said, however much Victor might the agent of change for both marriages, we are left in no doubt that the seeds of change were planted much earlier by the respective husbands. Sancho's physical bullying gives Clara an obvious reason for unhappiness, but Elena's discontent is much more subtle. Just look at the moment she picks to tell David that she's met Victor (the man, don't forget who put him in a wheelchair). Either David is really bad at what he's doing or she really wants to get back at him for something.

Ultimately, we're tipped off to the underlying symbolism (which doesn't stop it also just being an excellent drama) by the final lines of the film which talk about Spaniards no longer living in fear. This is a film about the transition in life and attitudes made by the Spanish population in the wake of the political transition from dictatorship to democracy. The men are 'Old Spain', the women are 'New Spain' and Victor is the means by which the new throws off the control of the old. Or at least that's what I saw when I watched it for the second time. I wonder if anyone else did?

"Sin Noticias de Dios" - "Don't Tempt Me"

Released: 2001
Director: Agustin Diaz Yanes
Cast: Penélope Cruz, Victoria Abril, Gael García Bernal, Fanny Ardant, Demián Bichir

Sin Noticias de Dios is a slightly odd film. And the more you think back on it, the odder it seems. It is also a quirky comedy with a smart script that draws on numerous genres.

The opening sequence reminded me of Tarantino, esp. Pulp Fiction, but instead of John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson, we get Penélope Cruz and Victoria Abril swapping sharp, gangsterish dialogue about history and the bible before donning Queen Elizabeth II masks and pulling out the artillery to rob a supermarket.

Flashing back from this initial scene, we enter the main premise of the film. Namely that Heaven (which is black'n'white and French) is losing the eternal battle with Hell (in full colour and currently presided over by the Mexican Bernal who is, however, in danger of being superseded by rather bland English bureaucrats.) Of deciding importance to the struggle is a particular(ly obnoxious) failed Spanish boxer, Manny. Both sides send their best agents to secure Manny's immortal soul. Heaven sends Abril, Hell sends Cruz and their competition is complicated by some Earthly gangsters to whom Manny owes money.

The casting is inspired. Cruz seems to relish playing a mannish role; her character is male but imprisoned in a woman's body as his Hellish punishment (as a nice touch at the very end, we find out what she really looks like; Hollywood gossip merchants will spot the irony.) Abril is altogether more elegant as the 1940s cabaret singer in a Parisian nightclub afterlife whose audience has dwindled as Hell gained the upper hand. Fanny Ardant is suitably chic and sophisticated as Heaven's Head of Operations. We never quite fathom her past relationship with her opposite number in Hell, Gael García Bernal, who steals every scene in which he appears. He's nervous, twitchy, gains our sympathy and he's prepared to deal with the other side in order to keep his underlings at bay.

So, a supernatural/biblical comedy with nods to Cold War spy story, corporate satire, gangster movie and just a sprinkling of courtroom drama. If you like quirky plotting, amusing dialogue and interesting ideas and visuals (and your player can take Region 1 DVDs) then it's worth a watch.