The Skin I Live In (2011)
…………………………………………………
The Skin I Live In Movie Review
The Skin I Live In is a 2011 psychological thriller film directed by Pedro Almodovar and starring Antonio Banderas and Elena Anaya. It’s such a twisted film.
………………………………………………….
“The things the love of a mad man can do“
…………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………..
So basically in this film we follow a crazy, mad scientist who takes revenge upon the supposed raper of his daughter by mutilating the man and changing his sex to female. The woman then becomes his captor. Yes, this is such a crazy story that only Almodovar could have cooked up. It is at its core another mad scientist plot, but with an added authentic twist by the director that made it hugely original and unlike any film that came before it.
The film wildly succeeds in its genre of psychological thriller as this ordeal is perfect for the heightened emotions of cinema and thrills of the genre. All of the scenes in the second half were thrilling and even quite disturbing whereas the first half was an overlong, but still well-crafted build-up with excessively, but still solidly employed time jumps.
Antonio Banderas is suitably creepy in his villainous role. I rarely thought of himself as capable of being this great in a serious role, but he really took me by surprise here as he delivered a terrific, very believable and creepy performance.
Elena Anaya is wonderful as Vera and her confusion, pain and suffering are all there on her face and in her eyes. That final family reunion sequence is so powerful thanks in large part to her standout, very emotive performance. Marisa Paredes is also excellent as Marilla, though her role is the most minor one here. And I really liked Jan Cornet as his Vicente is also very believable in his suffering, and quite sympathetic.
…………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………..
My favorite scene is the ending which is highly moving, perfect in conclusion and simply extremely powerful. But I also loved the twist as that really changed the movie which up until that point I had been wondering where all of that was going toward. It gave the movie a strong direction and a point which were previously absent.
Ultimately the Zeca stuff wasn’t all that necessary, though obviously that entire sequence was highly memorable how it was executed and with that tiger costume. But otherwise, the first half was nowhere near as interesting as the second half was, and only in retrospect do I find it somewhat necessary to be that long of a build-up. But still the backstories to the characters were all very strongly told.
The Skin I Live In uses time jumps a bit too much, but mostly they were well utilized thanks to strong editing across the board. The pacing is okay, but the direction from Almodovar is phenomenal and only he could have made this film for sure. The cinematography is also very good, the score too and the production design is fantastic with modern, abstract interior designs fitting well into this crazy, weird storyline.
…………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………..
Now, the film explores many ideas with rape, parenthood and emotional bonds all being prevalent and very well utilized. As for gender identity, thankfully Almodovar did not equate all of sex change with this one, which would have been horrible. But I found it odd that Vicente basically became a woman in mind even though it was forced upon him. That did not ring true to me, but still it made me wonder if a forced sex change would in some occasions act as real, voluntary ones. That ambiguity is both the film’s problem and strength, depending on how you look at it.
The Skin I Live In has a very long build-up, but eventually it was all worth it as the second half introduces such a crazy twist that made the film very unique and disturbing. The entire storyline here is that of a standard mad scientist, but with the added twist in a typically crazy Almodovar fashion as only he could have cooked up this plot. The performances are uniformly strong, the themes are intriguing and the film wildly succeeds as a psychological thriller how disturbing, provocative and twisted it is.
