I guess you could classify “The Skin I Live In” as a surrealistic revenge sci-fi romance. Pedro Almodovar’s film is so lush, sexual, exotic and artful, as they always are, that it’s above genre or even emotional expectations. Rarely is a film this darkly sexually perverse simultaneously queasy and mesmerizing.
The plot in ways recalls “Vertigo,” although this Spanish art house classic hardly feels or looks like Hitchcock’s masterpiece. It’s the twisted story of the wealthy plastic surgeon Robert Ledgard (Antonio Banderas). Robert decorates his house with priceless Renaissance nudes, each Madonna shimmering in her perfection. But his prize possession he watches from a hi-def surveillance camera placed in the next room.
There sits Vera (Elena Anaya), a goddess Robert has crafted for himself. As he watches, his instincts transcend voyeurism. He is captivated in awe at the deep secrets and memories she represents, for she seems not entirely a woman but an untouched being. Each day, Vera sits in isolation doing yoga and reading, and she seems only aware of her purpose for Robert.
It’s because he has literally created Vera using a synthetic skin stronger than a human’s. She resembles Robert’s dead wife, and her strength against cuts, stings or burns leaves her an untouched masterpiece. Most of all, Vera radiates.
Almodovar captures Vera’s beauty marvelously. She is the set piece in a richly colorful and alive film. His majestic, operatic imagery even inside an operating room (or rightfully called the “operating theater” here) never feel cold, despite how chilling the film’s mood can be.
As the film gracefully goes back in time to fill in details of the death of Robert’s wife and the mental illnesses of his daughter, we even meet some unexpected figures, namely two rapists who are each given a depth and complexity uncommon to a film and characters so sadistic.
Saying the characters are multi-dimensional does not even begin to scratch the surface of Almodovar’s flourishes as a storyteller. The film simultaneously becomes more romantic, elegant and deranged, and a haunting theme of our struggle with perception, appearances and memories forms out of all the surrealism.
“The Skin I Live In’s” ability to jump between genres is impressive, and Almodovar’s screenplay is not without humor, musicality and ironic justice. They can be found in the wonderfully intense performances of Banderas and Anaya. Banderas especially is in a role he seems born to play, is likely to have played before, and yet never has.
The film’s magnificent twist is one of the most remarkable and yet carefully understated movie moments of 2011. And for all of it’s cinematic bravado it is remarkable how much we truly care about each of the characters.
“The Skin I Live In” is a rightfully perverse and challenging experience, but no film this year is as infectious and unique.
4 stars