Under The Skin of Pedro Almodóvar

by Anne-Lise Perioche

With his new dark story Almodóvar creates a new gem of emotions.

Once again, the acclaimed Spanish filmmaker cut the human soul with a scalpel in a scenario finely chopped, perfectly balancing suspense, drama and emotion.

For “The Skin I Live In” (La Piel Que Habito) Almodóvar took his inspiration from the novel of the French writer Thierry Jonquet “Mygale”. Even though the beautiful Penelope Cruz isn’t the shinning star of his latest film, Almodóvar chose as usual a great team of actors. In this first collaboration Antonio Banderas, is perfect in his role as Robert Ledgard, a cosmetic surgeon, who since the death of his wife, burned to death in a car accident, spent his energy on trying to create the perfect skin that could have saved his charred wife. Destroyed by this death and the rape of his daughter, the surgeon will throughout the film overstep several moral issues including that of transgenesis. With the help of his devoted housekeeper Marilia (Marisa Paredes, perfect Almodovarian muse), they will keep Vera Cruz, played by Elena Anaya, sublime in the second collaboration under the camera of director of “High Heels”. Through cameras placed in the room, he monitors her every moves. Everything goes perfect for Robert until the night Marilia let Zeca, her son who is trying to escape the police after a crime, in the house. All the sudden all his plans crumble, and the audience gets ready to suspend disbelief. Violence, loss of control, sex and anxiety, previously contained inside the disturbed actors, will take over.

Two years after “Broken Embraces”, in which we could easily guess it was a self-portrait of the producer, Pedro Almodóvar depicts these twisted characters that he loves so much. Gender identity and his peculiar perception of women, two of his favorite topics running through his work, are once again mentioned in his new film. He also took the opportunity to make a new tribute to one of his favorite filmmakers, Hitchcock when it comes to the suspense and detective story.

There are two stories in one in Almodóvar’s 18th film. First sort of a farce, to my point of view rather unsuccessful, when we witness the rape of a patient by a runaway dressed as a tiger. Then, there is the other part of the story, the medical thriller dealing with identity. And this is the side of story, which makes me say that “The skin I live in” is another masterpiece by Almodóvar.

Just like me, you may get out of this movie questioning the perceptions of yourself and how the skin you live in appears to define you. And in the end, this is not a film, this is an Almodóvar film. Here is where all the difference lies…

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