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4 The Skin I Live In
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Director: Pedro Almodovar
Starring: Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya, Jan Cornet, Marisa Paredes
Not for the faint-hearted, this twisted (to put it mildly) revenge drama is hard to describe without giving away the plot, which rests on a medical suspension of disbelief that lands it in SFX territory… but only just. It stars Antonio Banderas as a doctor obsessed with one of his patients, the beautiful Vera (Elena Anaya), who he keeps locked up in his house and clad in a special bodysuit because he’s been doing something mysterious, and probably immoral, to her surgically. Her skin is so smooth and her face so perfect, in fact, that for most of the film the camera gazes at her in awe as we soak up her impossible beauty.
Director Almodovar, who adapted Thierry Jonquet’s French novel Tarantula with his brother Agustin, has stamped his signature luscious style all over the screen, while both Banderas and Anaya are glorious. But it’s the weird storyline that makes this such a keeper: sick, demented and offensive, it’s like someone took our worst nightmares and wrapped them up in exquisite, delicious chocolate. And you really need to taste it.
Best moment: The ending, which obviously we can’t reveal here, but either you’ll be cheering or gasping “No!” depending on where you stand on the morality of the plot.
Jayne Nelson
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