The Skin I Live In

In his latest film Almodóvar takes a qualitative jump into new philosophical depths. His usual reflections on the nature of relationships and the consequence of one's actions take on a well- defined shape and advance forward with self-assurance.

The order in which the events of the story are told is a cunning device that allows the director to make us reflect on how superficially - indeed, skin-deep - we perceive reality and how quick we are to judge first impressions and jump to conclusions. What we first perceive one way, those initial scenes that slightly baffle us but which we nevertheless do not hesitate to judge in a specific way, take on a completely new meaning when the story pauses to take us back into the past in order to tell us about an important series of events that happened at the time which bear a direct relation to present events. The new light that is shed on the present changes completely our perception of the story as we had first witnessed it, which is a humbling experience. We are then taken back again to the present and continue watching the rest of the film, but with this completely new understanding of the real underlying motivations for the characters' actions. It is at this point that through a slight thriller-style twist in the plot the story takes on a Shakespearean dimension as it delivers its powerful humanist lesson that vengeance begets vengeance.

Food for thought, in fact enough food to last you days and feed other people, as you are left on the one hand wondering at the concept of skin: what we actually desire when we desire someone, whether all desire is skin-deep, whether the skin does not allow us to see the person behind. And on the other hand you are left with the reflection on how the road of vengeance leads only to self-destruction. When a film leaves you pondering so deeply, I can only conclude it is a great film.

A fascinating and powerful departure for Almodovar, or perhaps more accurately more an terrific hybrid of the best of his old and new. This has the darker, more actively perversely disturbing and violent themes of some of his early work like 'Matador' but shot and directed with the far smoother and more mature hand he has developed over the years. It also uses the more complex and fractured time structure style of Almodovar's more recent work, to great effect.

In the end its a gorgeous looking, philosophically complex mystery and horror film. Although not gory, this is a disturbing work, both on a literal story level, and also for the questions it raises about identity, love, sado-masochism, and passion run amok.

These themes are all Almodovar touchstones, but delivered here with a visually stunning icy touch, and with much more complete logic than in his early works, which often felt less fully thought through, and had more frustrating plot holes and character leaps.

Not a 'scary' film, but a creepy, moody and highly effective one. A dark fairy tale as told by, say Stanley Kubrick.

It's good to see Antonio Banderas reunited with Almodovar, and he delivers a wonderfully complex and quirky modern day Dr. Frankenstein.

Less emotional than my two very favorite Almodovar films (Talk to Her, All About My Mother), but its exciting to see this extremely talented film maker continue to evolve and grow, and I think this represents work that can stand among his best.

The Skin I Live In is really a film that should be seen by a very big audience, obviously it's a movie that probably doesn't appeal to a very big crowd, it appeals to an older crowd or a young hipster type crowd who enjoy foreign films. I have read the novella Tarantula that this is supposedly loosely based on, however I found that it followed the novel extremely closely, I thought a lot of the twists and stuff that were in the book would be taken out if the film but thankfully most are present and accounted for.

Antonio Banderas is so terrific as the leading man, he hasn't looked this great in screen in a long time, I think he seems more at home in his native language, and Elena Anaya is absolutely radiant on the big screen, her face just lights up the screen and she is absolutely exceptional in a very strange role. The story is really a bizarre one, it's seems like a less perverted De Sade and a more understandable David Lynch, it always takes you by surprise and it is highly original and also somewhat daring I think, and thank god a director like Almodovar decided to film it and not some silly director.

The cinematography and music is beautiful, the colours and textures in the film are picked up beautifully by the camera and the music is a great companion to each scene, it's so close to perfection in the production design department that i would go so far to say as I haven't seen a better looking film this year.

This movie is in my opinion the least accessible of all of Almodovar's films but I hope it doesn't put people off, as his touch and style is clear and present here. It's very different, strange, perverted, horrific, beautiful and always entertaining.

Enjoy :)

I really like the description because it is intriguing enough to attract the viewer, but it does not reveal all the horror that will happen in the second half of the picture.

I will finally hit subjectivity and say that less and less often the film is able to cause anything other than: disgust, laughter or such a sad moment of crying, let's call it pity. I don't know.

But this movie! Everything is different here. Everything somehow shrank inside after the plot twist at the end and it was a great feeling.

It seems like the main villain of the film causes empathy, and the main character, he is the person who lost the most, appears to the viewer, on the contrary, not in the best possible way.

And with such ambivalent feelings, you sit and watch the climax. An indescribable feeling. Be sure to try it!

After losing his wife in a fire, accomplished surgeon "Ledgard" (Antonio Banderas) has been working for many years on a type of skin that can resists burns! After about a dozen of them, he might be on the cusp of a breakthrough - but just how has he managed to develop this groundbreaking fabric? We, watching, are not the only people suspicious and as his fellow scientists become more openly sceptical, we begin to discover a little more of just what he's been doing for all of these years and that's the kind of plot twist that really does make you cross your legs! This is another of those stories from Almodóvar that is really quite disturbing - but not in any kind of hysterical fashion; it's an almost perfect paced and increasingly menacing story that is gradually back-filled to powerful effect by an on-form Banderas who juggles obsession and neurosis compellingly. There's not a great slew of dialogue, just enough to keep the thing enthralling and I really did enjoy the last fifteen minutes. Not for the squeamish, I'd say - but a great watch.