Pedro Almodóvar revels in the pleasures of psycho-sexual horror with his unsettling portrait of a mysterious doctor and his patient/prisoner.
Ever since his beloved wife was horribly burned in an auto accident, Dr. Robert Ledgard (Antonio Banderas), a skilled plastic surgeon, has tried to develop a new skin that could save the lives of burn victims. Finally, after 12 years, Ledgard has created a skin that guards the body, but is still sensitive to touch. With the aid of his faithful housekeeper (Marisa Paredes), Ledgard tests his creation on Vera (Elena Anaya), who is held prisoner against her will in the doctor’s mansion.
Recalling Georges Franju’s landmark 1960 chiller Eyes Without a Face, _The Skin I Live In finds Almodóvar veering closer to horror than he ever has before. And yet his film transforms into something else – a moving exploration of identity and how it is affected by our physical, psychological and emotional selves.
