The Skin I Live In

The Skin I Live In (2011) is Almodóvar's coldest film and as disturbing as any horror picture. Robert Ledgard is a celebrated plastic surgeon. He keeps a woman named Vera locked in a room of his house. She wears a bodysuit that covers her completely. For years he has been developing an artificial skin resistant to burning, and he is testing it on her. The first half proceeds without explaining the situation. Then it goes back and you understand. That turn changes the entire film and we are not describing it here. It is adapted from Thierry Jonquet's novel Mygale. Almodóvar's familiar register, warm colour and melodrama, is present but used toward the opposite end. The house is immaculate, the light is beautiful, the music is elegant, and what is happening inside is imprisonment. That mismatch produces the real tension. Antonio Banderas returned to Almodóvar after twenty one years. His character never raises his voice and never loses his temper, which makes him more frightening. The film's question is identity: if a person's body is completely changed, what is left. It runs 121 minutes. Good for: psychological thrillers, Spanish cinema, and Almodóvar. Less good for: sexual violence, captivity and forced medical procedures are the central subject. It is genuinely disturbing.