The Skin I Live In

I really like the description because it is intriguing enough to attract the viewer, but it does not reveal all the horror that will happen in the second half of the picture.

I will finally hit subjectivity and say that less and less often the film is able to cause anything other than: disgust, laughter or such a sad moment of crying, let's call it pity. I don't know.

But this movie! Everything is different here. Everything somehow shrank inside after the plot twist at the end and it was a great feeling.

It seems like the main villain of the film causes empathy, and the main character, he is the person who lost the most, appears to the viewer, on the contrary, not in the best possible way.

And with such ambivalent feelings, you sit and watch the climax. An indescribable feeling. Be sure to try it!

As a longtime fan of Pedro Almodovar's films, I will admit the trailer for his latest film The Skin I Live In left me somewhat baffled. Having now seen the film however, I see the method in his madness. The trailer tells you little or nothing about the film but bombards the viewer with crazy images which are in retrospect probably designed to confuse. The trailer serves the purpose of telling the viewer very little of what the film is about while titillating with striking visuals. A bold move but an effective one, because the less you know about this film going in the better.

With that in mind, I'll keep this review short and will try not to give anything away. Antonio Banderas plays a rather unhinged scientist who is keeping a beautiful young woman prisoner in his home while using her as a human guinea pig for a new type of synthetic human skin. That's about as much information as you need. As the story unfolds, petal by petal in that flower-like way we've become accustomed to seeing from Almodovar, each scene adds wonder and flavour to an already robust set-up. Moving at a break-neck pace, not a frame is without beauty and not a second is wasted without pushing the story along. This screenplay is extremely polished and beautifully nuanced.

As usual, cinematographer Jose Luis Alcaine delivers beautifully vibrant visuals, but unlike other Almodovar films, this palette is decidedly less colourful, sticking mainly to Cronenbergian metallic colours fused with fleshy tones but with the odd gash of vibrant colour. It is as beautiful to behold as any other Almodovar film, but perhaps less garish.

In a film that relies on ambiguity in so many ways the cast here must be commended. Delicate balances are achieved by all concerned and it's wonderful to see Antonio Banderas settling into the rather unsettling role of Dr. Robert Ledgard. He exudes the same charisma and sexual bravura that made him famous but without the least whiff of sex symbol status coming through in the performance. He is creepy, strangely alluring and underplays the "mad scientist" bit admirably. Elena Anayas also impresses in a very challenging performance both physically and emotionally, both of which are perfectly effective as her story unfolds. A brilliant character who may not have been so impressive in the hands of a less capable actress. The camera intimately caresses her face and body throughout and she steadfastly rises to the challenge of being as beautiful a muse as a director could ask for.

It is unlikely that Almodovar will win over any new fans with The Skin I Live In but he will surely satisfy his already massive fanbase. A dark, thoughtful, frightening piece but never shying away from the heights of melodrama that Almodovar is known for, this sits beautifully on the line between Cronenberg at his best and a crazy soap opera.

Unique, Gothic and delightfully melodramatic! I love it!

http://charlenefilmblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/skin-i-live-in.html

Pedro Almodovar is not a conventional filmmaker by any means. His films openly explore subjects many acclaimed directors fear to tread and absorb in their whole entire careers, but what is always guaranteed with Almodovar is a sense of wonderment and the unexpected, and 'The Skin I Live In' ('La piel que habito') is no different. Based briefly on Thierry Jonquet's 2003 novel 'Mygale,' Almodovar's latest film is a delightful and refreshing combination of multiple genres including drama, thriller and body horror. It's shockingly sincere, beautifully horrifying and has an appeal that will keep the audiences eyes locked towards the events on-screen until the final credits roll.

Dr Robert Lesgard (Antonio Banderas) is a renowned surgeon who is attempting to achieve a breakthrough in bio-medical sciences by creating a synthetic skin through transgenisis. Classified as a horrific mutation by some, and acknowledged by Robert as an innovation, his experiments come at a price. His human test subject is a beautiful woman named Vera (Elena Anaya) who is contained within his home, and cared for by his head servant Marilia (Marisa Paredes). Vera is not like other women, she wears a skin-coloured suit made out of fabric instead of clothes, she is constantly watched by Robert and Marilia, and she never leaves her room, which only Robert himself holds the key too. What follows is a startling journey of discovery as the narrative unravels a story of disturbing past, present and future events; transforming the lives of all those involved.

Beginning in Toldeo in 2012, Almodovar utilizes a constantly underused and under-appreciated device in the nonlinear narrative. He provides the audience with one perception of each character before returning in flashback during the second act to six years previously where further events are explained and through this, the audience's initial observations of the characters become undermined and drastically altered. He then digresses between past and present at will building a comprehensive picture of each character involved as the story develops revealing some startling and disturbing discoveries. This decision to structure the film in this way, also adequately supplements Almodovar's need to explore his key themes including sexual identity, and the nature of the moral of ethics of the human soul after it has been literally stripped bare.

Coupled with the beautiful cinematography from Almodovar's long-time collaborator Jose Luis Alcaine and an original and complimentary score by Alberto Iglesias, 'The Skin I Live In' also becomes an example of technically proficient filmmaking which works alongside the performances of the likes of Banderas and Anaya, as well as the slickly written script which keeps the audience on their toes until the final curtain has been dropped. Pedro Almodovar is undoubtedly one of the most successful auteurs of the last few decades, and with 'The Skin I Live In' he shows that he can almost touch upon a new genre, in the form of body horror genre-hybrid, whilst also retaining all the previous elements, themes and techniques which have made his films the deep-seated critically successful films that they are.

The Skin I Live In is really a film that should be seen by a very big audience, obviously it's a movie that probably doesn't appeal to a very big crowd, it appeals to an older crowd or a young hipster type crowd who enjoy foreign films. I have read the novella Tarantula that this is supposedly loosely based on, however I found that it followed the novel extremely closely, I thought a lot of the twists and stuff that were in the book would be taken out if the film but thankfully most are present and accounted for.

Antonio Banderas is so terrific as the leading man, he hasn't looked this great in screen in a long time, I think he seems more at home in his native language, and Elena Anaya is absolutely radiant on the big screen, her face just lights up the screen and she is absolutely exceptional in a very strange role. The story is really a bizarre one, it's seems like a less perverted De Sade and a more understandable David Lynch, it always takes you by surprise and it is highly original and also somewhat daring I think, and thank god a director like Almodovar decided to film it and not some silly director.

The cinematography and music is beautiful, the colours and textures in the film are picked up beautifully by the camera and the music is a great companion to each scene, it's so close to perfection in the production design department that i would go so far to say as I haven't seen a better looking film this year.

This movie is in my opinion the least accessible of all of Almodovar's films but I hope it doesn't put people off, as his touch and style is clear and present here. It's very different, strange, perverted, horrific, beautiful and always entertaining.

Enjoy :)

After losing his wife in a fire, accomplished surgeon "Ledgard" (Antonio Banderas) has been working for many years on a type of skin that can resists burns! After about a dozen of them, he might be on the cusp of a breakthrough - but just how has he managed to develop this groundbreaking fabric? We, watching, are not the only people suspicious and as his fellow scientists become more openly sceptical, we begin to discover a little more of just what he's been doing for all of these years and that's the kind of plot twist that really does make you cross your legs! This is another of those stories from Almodóvar that is really quite disturbing - but not in any kind of hysterical fashion; it's an almost perfect paced and increasingly menacing story that is gradually back-filled to powerful effect by an on-form Banderas who juggles obsession and neurosis compellingly. There's not a great slew of dialogue, just enough to keep the thing enthralling and I really did enjoy the last fifteen minutes. Not for the squeamish, I'd say - but a great watch.