Live Flesh by Pedro Almodovar: Scene Analysis :: essays research papers

Pedro Almodovar’s 1997 film Live Flesh (Carne Tremula), is rich in both visual and story elements, making in the perfect candidate for a scene analysis. Upon writing this paper, however, this was almost to my disadvantage. I watched it through and whittled it down to about five scenes I considered analyzing. This self-challenge is a testament to not only this film, but Almodovar’s whole body of work; he has created so many thoughtful, intricate, and all together entertaining films in his career, I had to somehow forgive myself for just choosing one short scene out of only one of his movies for analysis. So, without further ado, here is an analysis of a scene from Live Flesh. The scene I chose to analyze is the one in which David (Javier Bardem) returns home from a basketball game, only to find out his wife, Elena (Francesca Neri) has slept with another man. It occurs at roughly an hour and 17 minutes into the film, and is relatively short, but extremely powerful. The opening shot to the scene of Elena returning home from her tryst early in the morning. She enters the shower and begins to smell her naked body, seemingly bringing back memories from the previous night. Every time she inhales, she lets out an orgasmic sigh, which makes it clear to the audience exactly what she is recalling. With each sigh it seems that she not only had an amazing sexual experience, but that she also doesn’t regret it at all. This is until her last deep breathe. After this, she pauses for a beat, and in this moment, a look of full realization about the events of the past night washes over her face. This moment is fleeting, however, because right when she turns the shower on, she closes her eyes, as if she is recalling not only the scents of the night before, but even the sights and sounds. As soon as she stops moving and cracks a smile, the shot quickly changes to David’s cab pulling up. The cab symbolizes David’s dependence, in that all he can do is sit in the back and tell the driver where to go, showing that his disability has forced him to become dependent on so many different people. The fact that David’s cab was shown right as Elena began to smile shows that David’s dependence is preventing Elena from truly being happy, which I’m sure is a struggle in any relationship involving a handicapped person.