The Skin I Live In | Little White Lies

The Skin I Live In

25 Aug 2011 / Released: 26 Aug 2011

Image of a woman in a floral dress and a man in a striped shirt sitting at a table in a room with framed artwork on the walls.
Image of a woman in a floral dress and a man in a striped shirt sitting at a table in a room with framed artwork on the walls.
4

Anticipation.

An Almodóvar body horror? Sold.

4

Enjoyment.

Not exactly. The Skin I Live In is an intoxicating elixir of dark fantasy, sick obsession and all-consuming desire.

4

In Retrospect.

An evolutionary leap from a true master of his craft.

Pedro Almodóvar’s lat­est is an intox­i­cat­ing elixir of dark fan­ta­sy, sick obses­sion and all-con­sum­ing desire.

What man cre­ates with one hand, he destroys with the oth­er. This hard-wired human para­dox forms the crux of Pedro Almodóvar’s sim­mer­ing tale of betray­al, revenge, and Promethean obses­sion. But before pas­sions flare and the plot accel­er­ates head­long into mad­ness, Almod­ó­var estab­lish­es order.

We open in Tole­do (the rus­tic cap­i­tal of the Castile-La Man­cha region syn­ony­mous with so much of the Spaniard’s work) with a post­card shot of the old city that echoes a frame from Luis Buñuel’s 1970 film Tris­tana. The over­ly­ing cap­tion tells us it’s 2012, an ear­ly dis­claimer that points to a pseu­do-sci­ence-fic­tion sub­plot. Once Upon a Time…’, it could read.

In a near­by lec­ture the­atre, Dr Robert Ledgard (Anto­nio Ban­deras) is pre­sent­ing his lat­est break­through to the sci­ence world. Through the use of trans­ge­n­e­sis, a high­ly con­tro­ver­sial inter­species cell-splic­ing process, this mod­ern-day Dr More­au has invent­ed a rev­o­lu­tion­ary new tis­sue. But his dab­bling in the dark arts hor­ri­fies his peers. The bones of the char­ac­ter are lift­ed from Thier­ry Jonquet’s 2003 nov­el Taran­tu­la’, but the rest is all Almodóvar.

Like all tor­tured cin­e­mat­ic bad­dies, Robert’s moral judg­ment was cloud­ed in a pre­vi­ous life by a series of trau­mat­ic ordeals. In this hor­ror sto­ry with­out screams or frights’ (as Almod­ó­var has described it) he is an appro­pri­ate­ly silent antag­o­nist, hon­ing his laser focus dur­ing end­less nights devel­op­ing his hybrid skin in a base­ment lab­o­ra­to­ry. All the while, his timid guinea pig, Vera (Ele­na Anaya), paces tire­less­ly in her first floor prison, flex­ing her flesh-toned body­suit with yoga prac­tice and skim­ming sec­ond-hand literature.

The grandeur of Robert’s pala­tial abode con­trasts the sani­tised naked­ness of Vera’s cham­bers, where the walls have been defaced in typ­i­cal penal fash­ion with eye­lin­er tal­lies and exis­ten­tial graf­fi­ti: I breathe. I know I breathe’, reads one tag. Almod­ó­var, inspired by Fritz Lang and Alfred Hitchcock’s sur­viv­ing silent noirs, orig­i­nal­ly intend­ed for the film to be shot in black-and-white.

For some­one renowned for his aes­thet­ic flam­boy­ance it’s hard to imag­ine what that mono­chro­mat­ic homage might have looked like. But a trace of it sur­vives in Robert’s kitchen, where his live-in helper Mar­il­ia (Marisa Pare­des) observes Vera on a colour­less closed-cir­cuit monitor.

Mar­il­ia is at first an idle voyeur. Her duties are domes­tic, and she car­ries them out with unflinch­ing obe­di­ence until a for­eign beast shat­ters this illic­it equi­lib­ri­um. In a delight­ful­ly spon­ta­neous turn, Mar­il­ia aban­dons pro­to­col and answers the door to a tiger on the lam. He’s Zeca (Rober­to Álamo), a cut­lass-scarred slaver­ing brute of a man who’s seek­ing refuge fol­low­ing a bodged heist. It hap­pens to be car­ni­val sea­son, and a gar­ish tiger-print cos­tume (equipped with penis-tipped tail) has so far enabled him to slip the fuzz.

With Robert away, the cat pounces on the chance to play, restrain­ing Mar­il­ia before over­whelm­ing and rav­aging a help­less Vera. It’s a cat­alyt­ic inci­dent that ends as explo­sive­ly as it began. It’s also where the genet­ic link that binds Mar­il­ia, Robert and Zeca crys­tallis­es. In the Almod­ó­var tra­di­tion of keep­ing it in the fam­i­ly, we’re pre­sent­ed with a por­trait of a moth­er torn between feud­ing sons in a fam­i­ly touched by evil. I’ve got insan­i­ty in my entrails,” accepts a crest­fall­en Marilia.

After the chaos of this scene, Almod­ó­var is quick to light­en the mood. Now swelled with lust, Robert retires with Vera to his pri­vate quar­ters. Despite the allure of loos­ened shack­les and satin sheets, how­ev­er, his advances go unre­quit­ed: The tiger real­ly messed me up,” says Vera non­cha­lant­ly. Their bod­ies remain entwined in a bit­ter­sweet requiem before simul­ta­ne­ous flash­backs reveal the dis­turb­ing truth behind their union. The exquis­ite aer­i­al com­po­si­tion of the shot evokes a scene in Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, where Ban­deras’ Ricky stud­ies a sleep­ing Mari­na, the hero­in-addict porn star he’s abducted.

It was here that audi­ences first glimpsed Almodóvar’s curios­i­ty with Stock­holm syn­drome. Now he’s flipped the psy­cho­log­i­cal phe­nom­e­non on its head, as Franken­stein is seduced by his own beau­ti­ful mon­ster. And with Robert’s guard down, Mar­il­ia switch­es from sub­mis­sive moth­er fig­ure to jeal­ous house­wife, threat­ened as she now is by Vera’s bur­geon­ing empow­er­ment. She watch­es Vera like a hawk, but Robert’s blind­ness ren­ders her vig­i­lance futile.

Like all the women in Almodóvar’s films, Vera and Mar­il­ia are born sur­vivors. Forces beyond their con­trol have altered their life paths, but they have the will to han­dle any­thing fate may throw their way. So where does this leave Robert? His genius is irrefutable – he is, from the get-go, an archi­tect of iden­ti­ty, a magi­cian of bio­met­rics. But play­ing God comes with a heavy price: it expos­es his mortality.

The films Almod­ó­var and Ban­deras made togeth­er in the 1980s – Labyrinth of Pas­sion, Mata­dor, Law of Desire, Women on the Verge of a Ner­vous Break­down, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! – formed the bedrock of a col­lab­o­ra­tion that rivalled the most icon­ic onscreen par­ings. Ban­deras was the Bob­by to Almodóvar’s Mar­ty, the Kurt to his Car­pen­ter. Indeed, it would prove as fruit­ful as any of the director’s flings with Car­men Mau­ra, Marisa Pare­des or Cecil­ia Roth. Ban­deras’ next film sched­uled for the­atri­cal release is Spy Kids 4 … How Hol­ly­wood has wast­ed him.

Back then Almod­ó­var saw an inten­si­ty and viril­i­ty in his young Andalucían muse that would inspire him to write some of his most bru­tal and intrigu­ing male char­ac­ters – from a gay Islam­ic fun­da­men­tal­ist in Labyrinth of Pas­sion to an affa­ble rapist in Matador.

Today Almod­ó­var has said that, at 50, Ban­deras is the right age to play a psy­chopath. Dr Ledgard is pos­si­bly the director’s most unam­bigu­ous vil­lain, but his luna­cy is root­ed in a domes­tic tragedy that is instant­ly human­is­ing. This is rein­forced by a triple-team of Castil­ian charis­ma, mer­ci­less good looks and a caramel machis­mo that makes Ban­deras so per­fect for the role.

Like many of Almodóvar’s men, how­ev­er, his pow­er is tran­si­to­ry. Act­ing on his car­diac impuls­es puts Robert in a vul­ner­a­ble posi­tion, but his undo­ing is entire­ly of his own mak­ing. Ulti­mate­ly, there’s always a sense that the women will seize control.

In an ear­ly scene, Vera mounts an unsuc­cess­ful jail­break. After gaz­ing long­ing­ly at her on a large flatscreen fixed at eye-lev­el on his bed­room wall, Robert heads to Vera’s room, paus­ing out­side to plan his next move. She forces her way past him with furi­ous deter­mi­na­tion, grab­bing a kitchen knife in a last ditch bid for free­dom. But Robert is pre­pared for any such event; his immac­u­late home dou­bles as a remote-con­trolled fortress.

Dur­ing the messy episode, a sin­gle jet-black lock of hair breaks rank, falling limply onto Robert’s sweat-bead­ed brow. It’s the briefest moment of fal­li­bil­i­ty, but it’s enough to sug­gest that his patri­ar­chal foothold might be slipping.

In this instance, how­ev­er, Vera finds her­self back on the sur­gi­cal table in the skilled hands of her cap­tor. A haunt­ing cov­er of Elliott Smith’s Between the Bars’ accom­pa­nies this reasser­tion of Robert’s author­i­ty – offer­ing poignant respite from Alber­to Igle­sias’ lus­trous crescen­do of pan­icked strings and rip­pling bass notes.

This mix of clas­si­cal and con­tem­po­rary is a recur­ring Almod­ó­var trade­mark. Robert’s man­sion is fur­nished with both Baroque and Cubist art, while con­tort­ed Louise Bour­geois sculp­tures pep­per man­tles and work sur­faces. The self-ref­er­enc­ing doesn’t end there. We’ve seen trans­sex­u­als in All About My Moth­er; rapists in Labyrinth of Pas­sion; even a tiger in Bad Habits. Dif­fer­ent puz­zle. Same pieces. It all fits.

The Skin I Live In is an edu­ca­tion in escapism. Its Chi­nese-box plot is a joy to unrav­el, each lay­er tak­ing you fur­ther and fur­ther past the point of no return. The truth, of course, is that you won’t want out. Almodóvar’s vision is more sin­is­ter than any­thing that’s been con­jured up in the dark­est recess­es of Park Chan-wook or Wes Craven at his peak. Yet this is a film of acute tact. Bursts of sex­u­al vio­lence are unset­tling but nev­er gra­tu­itous; bod­i­ly muti­la­tion is shown taste­ful­ly or not at all.

Like Bro­ken Embraces and Volver before it, The Skin I Live In shifts through the gears with nat­ur­al grace. Gen­res are effort­less­ly inter­changed. It is a con­trolled demo­li­tion of a movie, effi­cient­ly and con­fi­dent­ly set off by an auteur at the top of his game.

Almod­ó­var has noth­ing left to prove, but his refusal to slow down or bow to pop­u­lar con­ven­tion ensures that his films, while homo­ge­neous in their styl­is­tic and nar­ra­tive tropes, retain an enig­mat­ic qual­i­ty. He’s still infat­u­at­ed with intro­spec­tion, but in engag­ing with ultra­mod­ern ideals he’s invig­o­rat­ed our antic­i­pa­tion for what’s still to come. It’s impos­si­ble to sec­ond-guess where he’ll take us next, and we wouldn’t have it any oth­er way.

You might like

Accessibility Settings

Text

Applies the Open Dyslexic font, designed to improve readability for individuals with dyslexia.

Applies a more readable font throughout the website, improving readability.

Underlines links throughout the website, making them easier to distinguish.

Adjusts the font size for improved readability.

Visuals

Reduces animations and disables autoplaying videos across the website, reducing distractions and improving focus.

Reduces the colour saturation throughout the website to create a more soothing visual experience.

Increases the contrast of elements on the website, making text and interface elements easier to distinguish.