The Skin I Live In

I’d advise you to go into “The Skin I Live In” knowing as little about the film as humanly possible. This is what I did, and I was thankful for it; I believe it added to my fascination with the film and its unusually enthralling story. So, this inevitably begs the question, “why should you continue reading this review?” which is a fair question. Well, the chief reason you should continue reading this review is because I wrote it, and because I want to have my review actually read by people. You can rest assured I will not ruin the movie for you.

I’m going to give you a summary of what I knew of the film before I viewed it in all its glorious glory and splendorous splendour. I knew it was directed by Pedro Almodovar, a renowned Spanish filmmaker, and that it was loosely based on the novel “Tarantula” by Thierry Jonquet. I knew it was a Spanish film and that it would be subtitled in English. I knew that Antonio Banderas (“The Mask of Zorro”) was starring in it, and that he was playing the main character.

I knew Banderas’ character, named Robert Ledgard, was a plastic surgeon obsessed with creating an impenetrable synthetic skin. I knew his wife had been killed in a car accident of sorts. I knew he had a human guinea pig named Vera (Elena Anaya, “Van Helsing“) locked up inside his house. I knew he was experimenting on Vera with his synthetic skin tests. I knew there would be a plot twist at some point.

And that’s pretty much all I knew. I knew nothing of any storyline or general plot, as such going in a little blind and unaware of what I was about to watch. All I knew was the vague set-up involving two characters, which I trust aided in making the story so enchanting and beguiling for me to witness.

The film is basically a horror film without the typical traits of the genre; there are no jump scares or truly frightening moments, though there is the occasional murder. What it has is a haunting and unnerving atmosphere that keeps you a little on the edge, resulting in a hypnotic and riveting cinematic experience that you will never forget, nor necessarily want to. I don’t see how anyone couldn’t be captivated right from the opening moments of the film; the cinematography alone should keep any viewer hooked.

You’re genuinely curious about where the story is going and how this story actually came to be. It’s a story of revenge, love, sex and surgery; intriguing, no? There’s a lot of ambiguity about the backstory for the first half of the film, the second half dealing with all of these explanations by way of flashbacks. You’ll question how the flashbacks tie up to the present day setting dealing with the surgeon and his captive; why is Vera locked up, why does she look like Robert’s wife, and who the hell is she?

You’ll find that the answers to your many questions are absolutely horrifying. Properly research the film, and you’ll most likely come across frequent mentions of the aforementioned mind-blowing plot twist it contains; I promise you will never see this twist coming. Trust me, I spent half of the film trying to figure it out by myself, only to damn near fall off my chair in shock when it was revealed. ‘Tis quite the scandal.

“The Skin I Live In” is a fascinating experience that still lingers in your mind long after the end credits roll. It’s an often unsettling and frequently bizarre slice of art-house cinema that’s a drama, a horror and a thriller all rolled up into one helplessly entrancing film. It’s wonderfully acted, beautifully directed and gruesomely disturbing. It’s twisted, it’s tantalising, it’s mesmerising, it’s provocative, it’s perverted, it’s dark, it’s sick, it’s fucked up, and I loved it.

10/10