Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Film Pick of the Day: The Skin I Live In at The Belcourt
Posted by Steve Erickson on Wed, Nov 23, 2011 at 5:02 AM
In a key scene in The Skin I Live In, Dr. Robert Ledgard (Antonio Banderas) enters his house, and through a monitor resembling a pane of one-way glass, he starts to ogle the body of Vera (Elena Anaya). He's fully clothed, she's nude. He can see her, she can't see him. On the surface, this appears to be a textbook example of male voyeurism and objectification of women — a perv serving as the audience's Peeping Tom surrogate.Coming from Pedro Almodóvar, however, one of the world's most famous openly gay directors, it's a surprise. And there are more to come, as we find when Dr. Ledgard rushes into the shot. Vera isn't actually naked, she's wearing a body suit — an indication that Dr. Ledgard and Vera's relationship isn't what it initially seems to be. And neither is The Skin I Live In, which combines the kinkiness of Almodóvar's early work with the elegant style of his more recent films before striking off into transgressive new territory.
After his wife's death in a car crash, Dr. Ledgard has been less interested in his plastic-surgery franchise than creating a new skin substitute to replace burned flesh. After 12 years of research, he has created a real product: soft as genuine skin, yet impermeable by either blowtorches or mosquitoes. The only thing Dr. Ledgard needs is a human guinea pig. When his daughter succumbs to tragedy, he finds the perfect subject for his torturous research ... at which point we probably shouldn't say more.
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