Pick of the Week: The Skin I Live In (La Piel que Habito)

By Horacio Garcia

Genetic experiments, date rape, sex change, murder and secret identities make for an unbelievable cocktail only worthy of a soap opera or a really creepy reality show, but in the hands of the great Pedro Almodovar, are turned into the most deliciously twisted plot a horror movie has had in many years.

Longtime Almodovar fans won't be surprise by all the twists and jumps in the story, given the fact that many of them are rehashes of older Almodovar plots (especially some of his earlier works), but seeing Pedro's convoluted mind working on a horror theme is an added pleasure. Not to mention his long awaited reunion with favorite pupil Antonio Banderas as his crazed lead man.

After a shaky beginning in Hollywood, Banderas managed to build an American movie star career, (famous wife included) but in the last few years was mainly relegated to kids movies and cheese Hispanic characters in second-rate thrillers. Now he goes back smoothly into his Almodovaresque skin and reminds us why he was the biggest European star of his time; he is slick, dark and incredibly attractive as a surgeon obsessed with finding an artificial skin resistant to fire.

When the movie begins (and this is the only bit of the plot I'll give you in advance…) Banderas's character has succeeded in his research for an incombustible skin, a task that has alienated him from the rest of his colleagues for the unethical implications in mixing human and animal DNA. Even worse, Dr. Robert Ledgard (Banderas) imprisons the human subject of his experiments, a young woman named Vera, with the help of his longtime servant Marilia.

Things get hairy when Marilia's son Zeca shows up after committing a robbery, looking for a hiding place. From that point on, things get more and more complicated and the creepiness scales in a series of mind-bending twists,  mostly through the story told by Marilia, an incredible Marisa Paredes.

Like many of Pedro Almodovar’s films, The Skin I Live In rests heavily in his female characters and this one is not the exception; along with Marisa Paredes' great performance we have the pleasure of encountering again the beautiful Elena Anaya as Vera, the sequestered patient.

American audiences might remember Anaya as one of Dracula's vampire wives in Van Helsing (she is the pretty brunette one with the silly accent…) and in the very erotic drama Room in Rome. Anaya supplies the intense sexual appeal any horror movie needs.

The Skin I live In is a fine example of the kind of convoluted plot Almodovar used to favor in his earlier and more audacious films (La Ley del Deseo and Laberinto de Pasion come to mind…) but time and experience have refined the hand of the Master and La Piel que Habito is far better told than any of his previous films (except maybe Tacones Lejanos) and a real treat for the Halloween crowd. Truly a five star movie.

Tags Antonio Banderas, blogger: Horacio Garcia, Elena Anaya, Marisa Paredes, Pedro Almodovar