The Skin I Live in (La Piel que Habito)

If there is one thing to say about this movie that would be the fact that is a Pedro Almodóvar movie, and that should be enough.

Still this is a movie that stands out for many other reasons than that. The first is that is an intelligent movie, not told in your regular linear style. At the beginning we see this patient of sorts named Vera (Elena Anaya) completely isolated in a room of a private clinic. All her needs as food or drinks being met by an employee of the clinic, Marilia (Marissa Paredes) who constantly oversees what Vera does using cameras installed in her room.

The clinic is owned by a doctor, Robert Legard (Antonio Banderas). Legard has had a tough life having lost his wife and his daughter in unusual circumstances. His wife for instance suffered a car accident and almost died having suffered burns that compromised all of her body. Legard saved her life and during a long time tried to restore her damaged skin until the day she accidentally saw herself in the crystal of a window (Legard had taken off all the mirrors in the house) and suffered a shock and commited suicide after that. 

Doctor Legard then devoted himself to develop ways to create replacement skin for cases such as his wife's but his practice garnered him reprvoal from the rest of the medical community so he secluded himself and continued operating in secret. But there is a lot going on in this clinic, a series of mysteries that will unfold as the movie progresses. The audience discovers that the beginning of the movie is not the real beginning and that all the characters have a secret (even Marilia) with that of Vera being the most shocking.

Really this thriller is not your regular thriller, it is after all a Pedro Almodóvar film, but still there is the intrigue of what is really happening revealed through the memories of the same characters. For one thing you expect something wrong turning out of Dr. Legard's experiments but nothing like that ever happens. Instead, we see how the story unfolds into a revenge story. Dr. Legard's daughter also commits suicide but the circumnstances point at a young man who happens to have attempted to force her to have sex with him, but did not rape the girl. legard assumed the latter and seeks revenge but after his own fashion. Mercilessly Legard destroys this man forever and ironically as it may seem also gives him a new lease in life, but with a price that will take Legard to meet his final and tragic end.

To understand my words it is better that you sit down and enjoy Almodóvar´s storytelling a story. Banderas looks much better here than in those so-so movies he has starred in Hollywood, the rest of the cast  are great actors and the soundtrack is superb. 

Four stars out of five for this one.