Review #1,150: 'The Skin I Live In' (2011)

The work of lauded Spanish writer/director Pedro Almodovar has always been relatively unclassifiable. While his movies clearly bare his fingerprints, the tone can often switch between high drama and comedy, tragedy and farce, restrained and sexually liberated, and often within the same scene. 'Melodrama' is the tag he usually receives, but his vision is far more complex than that. The Skin I Live In, a film which reunites him with actor Antonio Banderas 22 years after Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1989) is perhaps his most genre-conscious yet. It's a teasing thriller cleverly disguised as a horror, taking inspiration from classics and art-house pieces that explored both the beauty and horror of the human form, and our eagerness to tamper with it.

The reserved and clearly mad plastic surgeon Robert Ledgard (Banderas) is on the verge of a breakthrough in the development of a synthetic human skin; one that avoids blemishing and has a resistance to mosquito bites and even fire. While his ethics are questioned by his peers, he also holds a terrible secret. At his home, he keeps a beautiful woman named Vera (Elena Anaya) locked away in a white room surrounded by cameras. The images are shown throughout the house, and Robert usually watches with fascination and desire on a huge screen that takes up most of the wall its perched upon. His loyal housekeeper Marilia (Marisa Paredes) also seems to harbouring a secret, and when her violent son Zeca (Roberto Alamo) returns, he sets off a sequence of events that will affect the lives of everyone involved. To give any more of the plot away would be to reveal too much, and Almodovar is happy to tease us by jumping back and forth between the past, present and the not-too-distant past.

It could be argued that this technique is a cheap tactic, but Almodovar wants to keep us from making any knee-jerk judgements until we've fully grasped the mindset of the characters. The movie goes to some seriously twisted places, and would perhaps be laughable if the events weren't so masterfully and elegantly pieced together. The doctor is terribly mad - this is evident early on - but Almodovar is clearly intrigued and seduced by Ledgard's dedication to his craft and his obsession over his creation. Banderas is brilliant in the role and reveals a more reserved and darker side to the persona seen in his American movies, as is Anaya, who manages to exercise a range of emotions through those stunning brown eyes of hers. If you enjoyed the themes explored in the likes of Georges Franju's Eyes Without a Face (1960), Hiroshi Teshigahara's The Face of Another (1966) and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, then The Skin I Live In will no doubt fascinate you as it wanders into some incredibly dark places.


Directed by: Pedro Almodóvar
Starring: Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya, Marisa Paredes, Jan Cornet, Roberto Álamo
Country: Spain

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie