Sunday, April 26, 2020

DVD/150: LA PIEL QUE HABITO (The Skin I Live In) (Pedro Almodóvar, 2011)

LA PIEL QUE HABITO reunited Almodóvar and Antonio Banderas for the first time since ATAME! in 1990.


Robert Ledgard is a respected plastic surgeon who alarms a conference when he says he is researching a new burn-resistant skin, his peers suspect he is still obsessed with his wife's death in a car-crash and the subsequent suicide of his deranged daughter.


Unknown to them, he is beyond research - locked in a bedroom in his secluded mansion is a young woman named Vera who resembles his dead wife and wears a flesh-toned bodysuit to protect the skin that he has grafted onto her body.


They share the house with Robert's servant Marilla who has her own secret: she is Robert's real mother and has never told him.


But who is Vera and what shocking secret is known by only Robert and her?


Revenge is a dish best served cold...

Shelf or charity shop?  Definitely shelf...  Antonio Banderas' darkly menacing performance was his best in years and there is fine work from Elena Anaya as the mysterious Vera and Almodóvar veteran Marisa Paredes as Marilla.  Two other longstanding collaborators make the film a pleasure to watch: José Luis Alcaine's lush cinematography and composer Alberto Igleisias' compelling score.  

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