for Tribune: Pedro Almodóvar’s THE SKIN I LIVE IN [5/10]

Published on: August 26th, 2011

The Skin I Live In
Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Adapting Thierry Jonquet’s novella Tarantula for his 18th feature as writer/director, Pedro Almodóvar spins quite the web of melodramatic intrigue – exploring the kind of baroque, sometimes perverse passions that have marked his output since his debut more than three decades ago. And the results, which see Spain’s most famous and award-laden film-maker once again working with his 1980s leading-man-of-choice Antonio Banderas – for the first time since 1990′s Tie My Up, Tie Me Down - were hailed by many as a notable return to form at Cannes earlier this year.

Contending for the Palme d’Or that – surprisingly – continues to elude the director, The Skin I Live In (La piel que habito) was received much more favourably than Almodóvar’s previous effort, Broken Embraces (2009). But while The Skin I Live In is certainly a step up from that messy misfire, it’s still a very long way from Almodóvar’s finest work – and, on the eve of his 62nd birthday, the odds are surely against his coming up with another masterpiece to match the likes of All About My Mother (1999) or Volver (2005).

Like most of Almodóvar’s movies, those twin peaks were based on original scripts by the man from La Mancha himself. Indeed, in his whole career he’s only twice used previously-existing source material – this latest picture following on from 1997′s Live Flesh (a loose interpretation of a Ruth Rendell novel). Rendell’s title could well have been recycled here, as matters of the flesh – in both the literal and metaphorical sense – are central to various strands of the time-hopping, intricate narrative.

This is a film which relies for much of its impact on (supposedly) surprise developments, but it’s safe to say that the main characters are a handsome scientist/plastic-surgeon approaching middle age, Ledgard (Banderas), and an much younger individual named Vera (Elena Anaya) who uncomplainingly resides – in luxurious captivity – in the basement of Ledgard’s isolated villa. Is she his wife? Daughter? Something else? Conoisseurs of Almodóvar’s extravagantly imaginative, gender-bending filmography will know to expect the unexpected and the bizarre.

But it’s a major failing that even those unfamiliar with his ouevre might well be able to spot the supposedly astonishing ‘twist’ before half-way (and it’s a twist that somehow manages to be both obvious and ludicrous) meaning that for the bulk of the two-hour running-time it’s more a matter of pondering how Almodóvar will craft his story towards its denouement, rather than wondering what that denouement might be. It turns out that the veteran provocateur is on something resembling ‘best behaviour’ here – managing to water down Jonquet’s decidedly adults-only, outré and kinkily disturbing original into a movie which the BBFC passed as suitable for Britain’s 15-year-olds (with the proviso that it “contains strong sex, sexual violence, brief gore & very strong language”).

This icky subject-matter seems to call out for either the clinical, intellectually-acute intensity of a David Cronenberg or the crazed, iconoclastic abrasiveness of peak-form John Waters. But Almodóvar, despite eliciting fine performances from Anaya and All About My Mother‘s Marisa Paredes (as Ledgard’s discreet housekeeper) can’t seem to decide whether he’s making a stomach-churning thriller or an off-beat love-story. And despite the occasional urgency conjured by Alberto Iglesias’s aptly multi-layered score, there’s insufficient momentum or suspense to keep us properly engaged.

The characters’ external environments are impeccably realised thanks to Antxón Gómez’s production design and Carlos Bodelón’s art-direction, The Skin I Live In can’t quite navigate their internal realms: Ledgard is much too controlled to pass muster as a ‘mad’ scientist, but his grief-spurred actions strain any reasonable suspension of disbelief. This means that while arch-cinéphile Almodóvar is suitably dutiful in his hommages – Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958), Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face (1959), plus (niftily) both Brian De Palma’s Obsession (1976) and Edward Dmytryk’s unrelated 1949 picture of the same title – his own variation is, in comparison, an unsatisfying, superficial affair: Skin-deep, indeed.

23rd August, 2011
written for Tribune magazine

THE SKIN I LIVE IN : [5/10] : La piel que habito : Spain 2011 : Pedro ALMODÓVAR : 120m (BBFC) : {12/28}