The Skin I Live In (2011)
Dir: Pedro Almodóvar
The Skin I Live In is Pedro Almodóvar’s nineteenth feature length film in a career that has encompassed everything from cheap melodrama to more incisive commentaries on personal identity and sexuality. Kitsch references to classical American cinema have given way to altogether more mature work, such as All About My Mother and Broken Embraces. Fans of Almodóvar’s previous films will be pleased to know that the director has not lost touch with his Movida past. His latest film strongly evokes themes from his previous works such as claustrophobic imprisonment in Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, and absent fathers/tragic mothers in High Heels and All About My Mother. It is also worth noting that Almodóvar has once again chosen actors from his previous films as the central characters in his latest creation. Antionio Banderas (Law of Desire, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!) Marisa Paredas (High Heels, The Flower of My Secret, All About My Mother) and Elena Anaya (Talk To Her) all deliver impressive performances.
The Skin I Live In is a Horror/Thriller set in Toledo, Spain, and tells the story of Robet Ledgard (Banderas), a well respected plastic surgeon who, ever since his wife’s death after a tragic car accident, has devoted his life to creating the formulation for a new, more resilient skin. Ledgard has cut himself off from the world in his luxurious countryside house, with little human contact except for his maid Marilia (Paredas), in order to concentrate on his patient, Vera (Anaya), whom he has totally transformed using his newly developed skin. However, all is not as it seems, and a chance visit from Marilia’s son, Zeca, sparks a chain of events that threaten to upset Ledgard’s carefully calculated plans.
Viewers will have to be on their toes to follow this delightfully twisted narrative as Almodóvar keeps us in the dark. He teasingly reveals the truth behind Ledgard’s motives through a succession of flashbacks and alternate angles, ensuring that the audience is left guessing to the very end.
By Robert Greene
