The skin is the human body’s largest organ: it presents a thin but mostly effective barrier against the world outside, protecting the other organs, muscles and tissue gathered inside. It’s nonetheless prone to scratches, boils, laceration and tearing. The relative fragility of the skin seems to bother Dr Ledgard (Antonio Banderas) quite a bit. His research, which takes him into transgenesis and some other forms of unethical practices, is focused on fabricating a type of skin that can resist most forms of damage. He has a human test subject, the breathtakingly beautiful Vera (Elena Anaya), with whom he seems to have a Stockholm-like relationship. And when he comes home at night after presenting his research to sceptical and concerned peers, he knows that she’s waiting for him: he watches her on a large screen that shows his subject reading, doing yoga or looking back.
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| Sscreenshot source: www.io9.com |
Pedro Almodovar’s The Skin I Live In is a dark mad scientist story, and any familiarity what that trope warns us that the scientist’s monster struggles with its loyalty towards its master. The ambiguity of the relationship between master and subject here is very stimulating, as power can shift to either side given specific circumstances. Ledgard even has a henchwoman, Marilia (Marisa Paredes), whose mature, lined beauty contrasts with the smoothness of Vera’s perfect face. Almodovar’s film is all lines, smoothness and surfaces, both in what we see happening on screen in deliberately designed compositions and also in how the film is cut together. It’s a film about control, desire and the filmmaker’s love for the medium, in particular its voyeuristic and surveillance-based capacities.
In dealing with control and desire as lived and constructed by the mad scientist, The Skin I Live In is a thriller made by someone who understands the basic formula of the genre and its conventions and knows as well how to shape these patterns and forms to his advantage. The master behind All About My Mother and Talk To Her has been making movies about women (and this current film again evidences the director’s adoration of the female form) for over thirty years, and his eye is confident and assured. The first half of the film inserts the viewer into the film in media res, and the plot culminates in a significant event before taking the viewer into the characters' past. In this part of the film we learn something about the doctor’s reasons for conducting his research, and it is here that Almodovar takes, I think, considerable pleasure in destabilising expectations and characters.
The Skin I Live In is a film of many pleasures. It’s melodramatic at times, chilling at others. There is some nudity, some violence, and a tiger who licks a television screen. Banderas delivers an intense performance, while Anaya seems to be replacing Penelope Cruz, if only for a while, as Almodovar’s siren. I haven’t even touched yet on the idea of gender – or on related ideas of identity – which is somewhat of a magnificent obsession for the filmmaker. I think it’ll suffice to say that this film will lead to some lively discussions on the matter.
In dealing with control and desire as lived and constructed by the mad scientist, The Skin I Live In is a thriller made by someone who understands the basic formula of the genre and its conventions and knows as well how to shape these patterns and forms to his advantage. The master behind All About My Mother and Talk To Her has been making movies about women (and this current film again evidences the director’s adoration of the female form) for over thirty years, and his eye is confident and assured. The first half of the film inserts the viewer into the film in media res, and the plot culminates in a significant event before taking the viewer into the characters' past. In this part of the film we learn something about the doctor’s reasons for conducting his research, and it is here that Almodovar takes, I think, considerable pleasure in destabilising expectations and characters.
The Skin I Live In is a film of many pleasures. It’s melodramatic at times, chilling at others. There is some nudity, some violence, and a tiger who licks a television screen. Banderas delivers an intense performance, while Anaya seems to be replacing Penelope Cruz, if only for a while, as Almodovar’s siren. I haven’t even touched yet on the idea of gender – or on related ideas of identity – which is somewhat of a magnificent obsession for the filmmaker. I think it’ll suffice to say that this film will lead to some lively discussions on the matter.
The Skin I Live In is visually sumptuous and thematically adventurous filmmaking, with an ending that would seem forced in lesser films but feels perfect in this one. The film’s perversions are provocative and beautifully executed. I’ve spent two days remembering and revisiting the film, and I must admit: I am in love.
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