The Skin I Live In
Our largest organ is both home and prison, protecting and exposing us, even stretching and shaping identity and world view. Without a shred of gray matter, skin plays a central role in forming the way we think, as responses we get from others based on our outward appearance–attractiveness, color, gender–can train us to be someone we may not want to be. Two great films about the importance of skin and self, Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face and Hiroshi Teshigahara’s Face of Another, both focus on what’s above the neck. But Pedro Almodóvar, with his designer’s eye and philosopher’s mind, audaciously extends the odd and vital subgenre beneath the chin and below the belt.
Dr. Robert Ledgard (Antonio Banderas) is a brilliant plastic surgeon, pushing the boundaries of his field, but life has toyed with him. As we learn, both his wife and daughter have committed suicide after horrific incidents. Ledgard, haunted and gaunt, has felt too much pain and now can only possess, not love. Kept prisoner in a room in his sprawling estate is a mysterious petite woman (Elena Anaya) in a form-fitting body suit. When he isn’t grafting onto her body an indestructible, synthetic second skin he’s developed, the demented doctor watches her on a large-screen TV, plotting his next move.
But who is this woman and why has Ledgard chosen her for such heinous experimentation? Was she a very different person when the surgeries began? And who will she end up being, both inside and out, as the surgeon continues his incisions and sutures? Almodóvar answers some questions but not all in this probing, sinister study of the flesh, which not only covers us but sometimes smothers us.• Watch trailer.
••••••••••
Recent films I liked now on home video:
Tags: Pedro Almodóvar