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"About Live Flesh I can only say that it is the most disquieting film I have ever made and the one that has caused me the most unease." - Pedro Almodovar
"Almodovar is back on top form with Live Flesh, a heady concoction of carnage, carnality and Catholicism that owes more to the works of Luis Bunuel that it does to the Ruth Rendell thriller from which it was loosely adapted. Less deliriously camp than earlier works, Live Flesh still retains enough kitschy melodrama and lush sensuality to delight Almodovar's international following.
"Its overt politicism and rueful rumination on themes such as death, destiny and redemption also signal a more mature phase in Almodovar's work, one in which extravagant style can take second billing to more substantive issues. The storyline itself could hardly be more baroque, entangling the lives of two cops, a diplomat's daughter, a philandering wife and an ex-con in a vortex of marital infidelities, murderous revenge and paralysing guilt complexes.
"Death stalks these sexy characters throughout an intensely fatalistic tragicomedy that also finds time to comment on the freedoms now enjoyed in post-Franco Spain. Live Flesh offers the dedicated Arthouser many of those hedonistic pleasures that first made foreign language films such a guilty treat." - Screen International
Born in 1950 in Calzada de Calatrava, Spain, Pedro Almodóvar moved to Madrid in 1967 and found work at the National Telephone Company where he was employed for over a decade. During this time he wrote for underground publications and comic strips as well as publishing a porn novel! In the mid-70s, after a stint working as an actor and singer in London, Almodóvar began making Super-8 and then 16mm features. After a surprise hit with the ultra low-budget Pepi, Luci, Bom (1980), the director commenced his film career in earnest. His enviable filmography includes Dark Habits (1983), Matador (1986), Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1989), Kika (1993) and The Flower of My Secret (1995).