The Skin I Live In

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.