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Pedro Almodóvar’s career-long study of sexuality and gender reaches a thrilling, cockamamie apex with “The Skin I Live In,” a florid horror story about the mutilation and manipulation of bodies that serves as a perfect, arty antidote to “The Human Centipede 2.”
The movie is Almodóvar’s 18th, and it marks his first collaboration with Antonio Banderas since 1988. Here, Banderas plays Robert, an urbane mad surgeon whose elaborate epidermal experiment is filling a void left by his late wife and daughter, both of whom committed suicide. It’s also blurring the lines of sexual identity to a point that’s as shocking as the film’s color scheme is lush.
Only the strongest emotions will do for Almodóvar, and so “The Skin I Live In” is yet another broiling melodrama, its characters dutifully averse to passivity and its twists too wild to elicit anything but gasps or laughs. There’s Vera (Elena Anaya), the gorgeous subject of Robert’s work who at one point slits her own throat; Marilia (Marisa Paredes), Robert’s maid who, unbeknownst to him, is also his mother; Vincente (Jan Cornet), a handsome 20-something who may or may not have raped Robert’s daughter; and Zeca Roberto Álamo), Robert’s estranged brother whose lust is practically carnivorous.
All of this amounts to an experience of perverse joy, a relishing of Almodóvar’s insistence on thinking miles outside the box with his soapy storytelling (the key reveal is an exquisite blind-sider). It’s bolstered by characteristically piquant visuals, whose costumes and operating-room compositions are themselves worth the trek to the theater.
The movie’s many gifts make it easier to forgive the fact that it’s nevertheless only partially realized, as Almodóvar, for all his bold ambitions, stops short of exploring all that the film implies. This is especially true in regards to Robert’s psychological and sexual motivations, whose development would prove rich enough to warrant lengthening the 117-minute running time.
As it stands, it’s a tossed-away tease, and it supports the odd, discomforting notion that the latest from one of our great painters of the screen was better in its conceptual stages.
The Skin I Live In
R
Three reels out of four
Opens tomorrow at the Ritz Five
Recommended Rental
Life in a Day
PG-13
Available Tuesday
Directed by Kevin Macdonald and produced by Ridley Scott, “Life in a Day” is a collaborative documentary culled from more than 80,000 user-generated YouTube videos, whose makers all filmed their experiences on July 24, 2010. The feature-length result is an eye-opening snapshot of all manner of people sharing the same hours across the globe. It is both a time capsule and an experimental leap forward in the world of new media. SPR
Contact the South Philly Review at editor@southphillyreview.com.
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