LA PIEL QUE HABITO (THE SKIN I LIVE IN)

Spain, 2011, 117 minutes, Colour.
Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya, Marisa Paredes, Jan Cornet.
Directed by Pedro Almodovar.

It is only in the latter part of this film that we discover (are shocked) to discover the identity of the I of the title. We are wondering why we are being shown particular events as the film moves from present to past and back, and then it suddenly makes sense. But, of course, one has to see the film to experience the meaning of the whole film.

Pedro Almodovar has been Spain’s leading director for more than two decades. His films are usually flamboyant, colourful (bright colours often enough), emotional and melodramatic. This one is no exception. In fact, by the end we realise just how melodramatic it is.

In the 1980s and early 1990s, Antonio Banderas appeared in a number of Almodovar’s films, a strking screen presence. Then Hollywood lured him away. He has returned to his mentor in the role of a professor, a doctor who lectures but who also has a laboratory and assistants for experimenting with skin tissue. While Banderas looks handsome and urbane, not someone that we would immediately discern as a variation on Dr Frankenstein, it soon emerges that he has a human subject for his experiments, a young woman whom he keeps solitary, who resents him. It is only the housekeeper (Almodovar veteran, Marisa Paredes) who has access to his patient. The housekeeper also has her secrets.

Just when we have come to terms with all of this (plus an intrusion and attack by the housekeeper’s criminal son) and have learned that the doctor’s wife was killed in an accident some years earlier and that that has had a traumatic effect on his daughter, we are taken back six years. We see the doctor coping with his wife’s death, and his attempts to keep her alive. We also see the shy daughter at a party where she is hit on by a young man who works with his mother in a clothing store.

And that is probably all a reviewer should reveal of the plot.

As indicated earlier, we are left puzzling about the connection between the past and the present and the motivation that drives the doctor, which becomes more perverse as we move back to the present.

While the film has many common themes from other Almodovar films, especially his portraits of women, especially the fine and challenging Talk to Her, this is serious in tone but presented in a highly theatrical and melodramatic style (more Mediterranean than that of colder climates).
1. The work of Pedro Almodovar? His reputation? Career? His melodramas? Colourful, the Spanish perspectives?

2. The Toledo setting, the city, houses, laboratories? Spanish atmosphere? The musical score?

3. The structure of the film: the time zones, the past, progress through time? The response to the characters as known? Better understanding through the flashbacks? The differences? The changing of perspectives?

4. The title, identity, Vera Cruz, Vincent? The physical aspects, psychological aspects, scientific experimentation, emotions, gender, sexuality? Living with ambiguity?

5. The vigilante perspectives and revenge? The Frankenstein creation perspective? The scientist and hubris?

6. The initial focus on Vera, her age, appearance, locked in, being spied on by Robert and by Marilia? Her behaviour, repressed, the yoga exercises, food? The impact on her character? The puzzle about who she was and why she was there? The subject of skin experimentation?

7. Roberto, Antonio Banderas, his lectures, the response of his students, his particular scientific interests, skin and development? The assistants helping him? Their experiences and experiments? Vera as the experiment? Roberto and Marilia, his relationship with her as housekeeper? Controlling Vera?

8. Marilia, her relationship with Vera, custodian? Stern? The audience discovering her story, her relationships, her children, with Roberto? The master of the house, her relationship, the conception of the child, the wife, the adoption? Bringing the two boys up? Her return to work with Roberto and serving him?

9. Zeca, his appearance, the carnival clothes, disguise? The news of the robbery, the television information? The background of Roberto’s wife, her death, her relationship with Zeca? Roberto’s wife, their daughter? The brother and his attraction towards Vera, the rape? His character and his story? Vera, her being hurt? The shooting?

10. Going back six years, Roberto, his wife, the affair, the crash, his trying to preserve her? Norma, her relationship with her father, the trauma? Growing up? Roberto and his work and the laboratories?

11. The character of Vicente, his work in the shop, his relationship with his mother, the lesbian woman working in the shop? The drugs, partying, his friends? At the social, his attraction towards Norma? Going out with her, the sexual attack, her reaction, his escape, the bike? Roberto and his finding his daughter, the shoe? The confrontation with Vicente and the film’s repetition of what had happened? The different perspective?

12. Roberto, the car, the chase, knocking Vicente off his bike, imprisoning him, the chain, water, the food? Drugging him? The build-up to the operation, the transsexual? Its effect?

13. The passing of the years, Vicente and his being transformed into Vera, into a woman? Yet his mind and emotions as a man? Forced to live as a woman?

14. Roberto and his focus on Vera, the infatuation, setting her free, the sexual encounter, Vera and her character?

15. The gun, the meal, Marilia? The shooting, her death?

16. Roberto, the consequences, Vera and her going into the room, killing Roberto?

17. Vera and her freedom, travelling home, meeting the woman in the shop, her mother, the revelation?

18. The ending – Roberto overstepping the limits, both as a scientist, sexually? His death? His mother and her paying the price? The future for Vera? - and leaving the audience with a puzzle, what they felt, what they thought about the issues?