Only in a Pedro Almodóvar film could the housekeeper be dressed as elegantly as Marisa Paredes' character in The Skin I Live In. The opening intercuts between the sophisticated Marilia preparing a tray of food and a much younger woman upstairs performing her morning exercises, dressed nowhere near as well. She wears a nude bodysuit over a perfect body. Her room is a beautiful but barren cell. Some kind of evolution is underway. The housekeeper sends the breakfast tray in a dumbwaiter to her captive above, but not before adding a copy of Alice Munro's short story collection Escapada. Both a body and mind are being formed.
Vera (Elena Alaya) is our prisoner and Roberto (Antonio Banderas) the mad surgeon who keeps her. He claims she's his patient. But she's a patient receiving treatment against her will, judging from the locked doors and ubiquitous cameras monitoring her every breath. Even though this is where the film begins, it's clear Vera has been under Roberto's care for some time. Long enough for him to declare, "I don't want to improve anything." Her process is complete.
But how did we get here? Where did Elena start? And what exactly needed improving?
Following an Almodóvar plot can be a challenge. Typically his narratives leap back and forth in time. As a result we end up paying extra attention to where we are, accepting that we will eventually learn how we got here. Accordingly The Skin I Live takes us into each character's past, and back again.
Perhaps because we begin where Elena has wound up, we accept who she is - no matter what Almodóvar throws at us. Despite all the Hitchcockian overtones, this is not a whodunnit. It's a what's-been-done and why-was-it-done. And Almodóvar throws a lot our way. Much has happened and a lot has been done. "The things that a madman's love can do," Marilia mourns. Things that resonate beyond even Freud's comprehension. To confuse us further, Almodóvar mashes genres beyond recognition. Science fiction becomes mystery, mystery becomes tragedy, tragedy becomes farce, and farce becomes drama.
But there is method in his madness. The characters' transformations are so unbelievable, it is all the more miraculous to see Almodóvar pull it off. Precisely because the emotional journeys are performed so credibly, we buy the physical journey. We trust, despite our eyes. We believe the unbelievable. And only because we accept how we've gotten here, can the film's chilling last line become a true revelation. We now understand the enormity of the journey that lies ahead.
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