Part Of The Picture: Husbands and Lovers

HUSBANDS AND LOVERS

JAN 2, 2010 – MIDWAY THROUGH HIS WIFE’S PHYSIOTHERAPEUTIC ministrations, David (Javier Bardem) – seated in the bathtub – gets amorous. He pulls a mock-protesting Elena (Francesca Neri) in, hoists her by the buttocks, towards his face, and begins to pleasure her. Clutching the water pipes above for support, she moans, “Ti sono molto vicino.” David stops to ask what she just said (in Italian, her tongue). “That feels good,” she translates, and he heads back to where he was earlier. “Even better.” Elena’s subsequent words, however, quash the mood. “I saw Victor Plaza at the funeral,” she says, causing David to come up for air a second time. He’s annoyed, and he asks if she’s sure. She is. Davis is puzzled because he didn’t see Victor (Liberto Rabal). Elena says he was facing the other side.

David swears. He asks, “Did he say anything?” Elena replies that Victor sympathised with her about the loss of her father, and this arouses David in an entirely different fashion. He seethes, “He’s a psychopath. How did he know about the funeral?” Elena doesn’t know. David suggests, “Maybe he followed you. We have to tell the police.” Elena brushes him off, but David insists. “I’m not going to let that madman follow you around.” Elena turns practical and admonishes her enraged husband. “We can’t report him for expressing his sympathy to me in public.” And we know, then, that even if David doesn’t go to the police, he will do something. He does, after all, blame Victor for his plight, for his inability to pleasure his wife in the usual ways other men take for granted. David is a paraplegic.

Sure enough, a little later, David gets into his wheelchair and lands at Victor’s doorstep. He squeezes through the steps and through the door and finds Victor in the middle of push-ups – a virile man in the peak of youth, in full command of every inch of his body. Victor turns and barks, “You know this is illegal entry?” David doesn’t care. “Why were you in the cemetery the other day, spying on my wife?” Despite David’s aggression, it’s hard, at this point, not to feel for him – seated in his wheelchair, he appears to be speaking to Victor’s navel, now that the latter has drawn himself to full height. Eyes shining with tears, Victor replies, “I wasn’t spying on anyone. My mother died while I was inside [prison]. I just happened to be near your *****ing funeral.”

Something isn’t quite right about this situation, for Victor’s face glows with righteous indignation – hardly the mark of a guilty man. Could David be wrong about Victor’s part in the accident that crippled him? We’ll have to flash-forward a few scenes for the answer, when – once again – David confronts Victor (in Elena’s office) and says, “Victor, let’s be frank. That woman who’s just gone out is my wife. I’m crazy about her. I’d do anything to defend her, because she’s all I have. And like all cripples, I’ve got a filthy temper.” Victor retorts, “I’m sure you love your wife and have a filthy temper. But it’s not my business.” David thinks it is. “Come on… Before I met you, I looked up at the sun, the stars, the moon. Since I met you, I have to look down.”

“I have to look at dog shit so I don’t stain my hands, at kerbs so I don’t crack my skull! You condemned me to look down!” As in the earlier scene, Victor’s is the face of an innocent man. He simply says, “I didn’t condemn you to anything!” And he reveals what really happened during the accident. But returning to the scene where we left off, this explanation is still unknown. Why didn’t Victor confess earlier, when David first squeezed through his doorstep? Why wait for that second opportunity, in Elena’s office, to present itself? The answer becomes clear as David appears to sense, like us, that Victor’s face is curiously aglow with innocence. Calming down, he says, “You always happen to be where you shouldn’t.” Victor says he’s not as lucky as David, who wins even in the worst moments.

Victor coveted Elena once, and he knows now that David is married to her – he knows David has won. And now we sense why Victor will not defend himself, why he will not – as yet – protest that he’s innocent. This is the first time they’re meeting after the accident. The injuries are still too raw. They’re still at the macho face-off stage, circling each other like wary dogs, sniffing for the slightest sign of weakness. David sees no option but to get all alpha-male and issue a threat. “If you go near my wife again, I’ll crack your skull.” Victor looks at his impotent, wheelchair-bound guest and smirks, “How?” By way of a reply, David punches Victor in the groin – for the next few seconds, they’re equals, their manhood laid equally waste. But Victor has the last word. As David pitifully wheels himself out, he begins his push-ups again, only this time he stops to clap each time he rises. At least for now, he’s more man.

Carne Trémula (1997; Spanish, Italian; aka Live Flesh). Directed by Pedro Almodóvar. Starring Javier Bardem, Francesca Neri, Liberto Rabal, Ángela Molina.

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Posted in: Cinema: Foreign