The Skin I Live In
A debauched high camp mashup of Face/Off, Oldboy, and an uncommonly glossy telenovela (as well as countless timeless classics from Frankenstein to Vertigo), The Skin I Live In sees Pedro Almodóvar take his signature soapy sensibilities and apply an ingeniously effective genre twist.
For his grand experiment, the venerated auteur re-teams with early-career muse Antonio Banderas to adapt Thierry Jonquet’s 1995 mad scientist tale, Mygale. Almodóvar sets his take in the near future, employing a wonderfully measured Banderas as Dr. Robert Ledgard, a world-renowned plastic surgeon who has invented a hyper-durable synthetic skin, entirely natural to the touch.
If that’s Dr. Ledgard’s claim to fame, his more surreptitious skills include the capacity to effect the sort of fanciful, head-to-toe transformation that turned John Travolta into Nicolas Cage. He’s also capable of jaw-droppingly elaborate acts of vengeance and, fittingly, demonstrates a proclivity for sexual transgression that would make Chan-wook Park proud.
Beyond these (hopefully) enticing teases, the less you know, the better—save that mid-way into The Skin I Live In, Almodóvar springs what would be a lesser film’s crowning final-reel reveal. This paves the way for a superbly subversive third act, wherein the tropes of the rape-revenge fantasy are turned inside out. Almodóvar evidently delights in the opportunity to indulge in an unhinged exploration of his favoured themes, including the potential for self-destruction that goes hand-in-hand with passionate desire, and the malleability of sexual identity and orientation.
After 2009’s underwhelming Broken Embraces, The Skin I Live In is a thrilling surprise in more ways than one.