Title: The Skin I Live In

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Cast: Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya, Blanca Suarez, Jan Cornet, Roberto Alamo and Marisa Paredes.

Pedro Almodovar has made an entire career of embracing the melodrama. With most every one of his films gravitating to highly emotional points, exaggerated plotting (almost to the point of a soap opera treatment) and vastly interesting characters driven by their emotions and yet, these decisions are often ambiguous and not clear why they were eventually driven this way. His new film, “The Skin I Live In,” is no different, but what is worth watching this time around with a new film by Pedro Almodovar is the storytelling. The storytelling is so tight, but at the same time almost lucid, and focused but at the same time muddled; but in the end, everything seamlessly comes together and leaves you exhilarated and wondrous but at the same time haunted.

The story revolves around Dr. Robert Ledgard (Antonio Banderas), a brilliant plastic surgeon and geneticist. He is introduced to us by grafting new synthetic skin on one of his patients, Vera (Elena Anaya). She is secluded in Dr. Ledgard’s estate, where he continues to develop new ways to reconstruct her frail body. He presents his new advancements in skin regeneration and grafting to a scientific board as a way to save more lives, but there’s a looming suspicion of the medical ethics behind his techniques. The audience is left to wonder how Vera’s body was so disfigured and why Dr. Ledgard is so obsessive in making her well. We are introduced to Marilia (Marisa Paredes), Ledgard’s servant, head nurse and mother, as she attends to Vera’s needs. Her long lost son, Zeca (Roberto Álamo), who pays his mother and unexpected visit and turns their world upside down. The plot of “The Skin I Live In” is fragile, much like Vera’s body, and what pays off is intoxicating when confrontations turn violent and the film’s secrets become apparent to the audience.

There is this ethical question of a doctor’s relationship to their patients when empathy turns into passion between Dr. Ledgard and Vera. Told in a series of dreams, which reminds me of the work of Federico Fellini and Luis Buñuel, Dr. Ledgard and Vera’s back story is masterfully told and gives the audience a bigger piece of the puzzle throughout. The shifts in tone, going from a romantic drama into something that is almost horror from the likes of Eli Roth and Pier Paolo Pasolini, in terms of torture and the grotesque. Almodóvar marries these two genres seamlessly because what sells it is the editing and the performances of Antonio Banderas and Elena Anaya.

Antonio Banderas lends a certain stoicism to the character of Dr. Ledgard’s approach. His story is one of redemption, obsession and madness, all portrayed with a stone face, which is very cold and calculated. Dr. Ledgard is driven to advance the science because he lost his wife to a car accident, which led to her body receiving 3rd degree burns throughout, which led to her eventual suicide. He is also driven to revenge after his only daughter was violently raped, traumatized and, like her mother, committed suicide. Now alone, his obsession takes him to care for Vera.

Elena Anaya’s Vera conveys an eerie nature that is both ambiguous and sympathetic. For a majority of the film, we don’t know why she’s a patient of Dr. Ledgard. We are introduced to her doing yoga in a minimal room, wearing a full protective body suit to protect her skin. But as the film unfolds, we discover something more sinister and haunting behind the body suit. Anaya gives the brunt on the pathos of this film, never giving away too much no matter how over-the-top or exaggerated the story gets.

“The Skin I Live In” is a must see and is especially top-tier and moving. Please keep in mind, at the end of the day, this film is a horror film with the sheen of melodrama, and in this way, it’s more effective than the horror-de jour with the likes of “The Human Centipede,” which is frivolous and empty. Smartly, with Almodóvar, it’s not what shown, it’s what’s conveyed, in other words, actual filmmaking. Almodóvar doesn’t reveal too much of the story to the audience until it is time and even then he leaves so much to the imagination, which makes the horror twice as much disturbing and lasting. Along with the brilliant score by Alberto Iglesias, which drives the horror element really effectively. The character moments and motivations are the ones to watch here, which are small and subtle, that if you blink, you’ll miss it. The title alone adds a level of meaning that is more than just on the surface level but is something that is more than just skin deep.

“The Skin I Live In” is screening as part of the New York Film Festival on Oct 12th. It opens in a limited release on Oct 14th.

Technical: A

Acting: A+

Story: A+

Overall: A

by @Rudie_Obias