The Skin I Live In

[originally written 11/16/11]

I feel like I really need to talk about this movie, although I’m not exactly sure what to say. The feel of the film is spot on; the cinematography is so perfectly sterile, smooth, and creepy. I first thought the film was going to be some kind of creepy medical thriller, but the whole artificial skin thing is an element of the story, but not a core part of it. The core of the film is obsession, revenge, and violation. I don’t want to spoil this movie at all (if you’re even thinking about seeing it, don’t read below the cut!), but I have to warn that it gets very disturbing and I think it could definitely be triggering.

In fact, I think violation of all types is the main theme. The violator and the violated, violation of privacy, rape, to gaze and be gazed at; Almodovar manages to blend all of these together and adds the elements of identity and medical sterility to make a disturbing but striking film.

Seriously, if you have any interest whatsoever in this film, please don’t read the spoilers below. (Awesomely, the trailer definitely does not spoil; in some ways it doesn’t tell you anything.)



I’m still wrapping my head around this. It’s really weird, and it feels terrible to say, but I never thought I’d think that a rapist could get disproportionate retribution. Like, it’s one thing to say that rapists should get the death penalty (and I don’t know if I’d even agree with that), but did Vicente deserve getting a sex change? And I wonder how far Robert intended to go with it, and does transforming somebody’s body count as torture? Is it violation in the same way rape is? Vicente, as Vera, is raped, but she’s already lost her body and entire identity.

Of course, I’m sure it’s arguable that Vera was always Vicente on the inside, just biding his time and until he could trick Robert into lowering his guard. But I think that he, for a long time, really did believe he was Vera, through opium, Robert’s manipulation, and isolation, and she developed Stockholm Syndrome towards Robert. (Pronouns are hard to determine with this character!) I think she was being honest when she told Robert’s former colleague that she had never heard of Vicente, and it was only when she saw his picture that she put two and two together.

I still really don’t know what to think about it.