The Skin I Live In

By Xah Lee. Date: . Last updated: .

Watch it, feel the sickness, and love the eerie music.

Mother, scientist, daughter, skin. Rape, death, robbery, forced sex change.

The Skin I Live In trailer Buy at amazon

Kirk Honeycutt, writing for The Hollywood Reporter, said “Along with such usual Almodóvar obsessions as betrayal, anxiety, loneliness, sexual identity and death, the Spanish director has added a science-fiction element that verges on horror. But like many lab experiments, this melodramatic hybrid makes for an unstable fusion. Only someone as talented as Almodóvar could have mixed such elements without blowing up an entire movie.” Honeycutt continued: “The film's design, costumes and music, especially Alberto Iglesias' music, present a lushly beautiful setting, which is nonetheless a prison and house of horror. Almodóvar pumps his movie full of deadly earnestness and heady emotions.” David Gritten notes Almodóvar “reaches out tentatively into unexplored genre territory—horror … Yet despite squirm-worthy moments … the promise of horror gives way to Almodóvar's broader, familiar preoccupations: identity, blood ties, disguises and genetic traits.” According to Gritten, “A list of the story's various elements—date rape, murder, secrets, lies, mystery parents, gender ambiguity, unbreakable emotional bonds—confirms The Skin I Live In as essentially a melodrama. Yet Almodóvar's story-telling is nowhere near as shrill as it once was: as a mature artist, he has refined his skills to a point where these soap-opera tropes assimilate smoothly into a complex whole…. Typically for Almodóvar, it all looks ravishing, thanks to production designer Antxon Gómez and cinematographer José Luis Alcaine. All three men have the gift of investing mundane objects with a unique sheen; here even surgical instruments, about to be used malevolently, assume a dreamy, otherworldly quality. The Skin I Live In is the work of a master near the top of his game.”

[from Wikipedia]

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The Skin I Live in Buy at amazon