The Skin I Live in review

 Number 677 on the top 1000 films of all time is the Spanish body-horror film The Skin I live in.

Dr Robert Ledgard (Antonio Banderas) Is a plastic surgeon who has pioneered a new form of human skin which is practically indestructible. He has done all this with the unwilling help of his human guinea pig Vera [Elena Anaya] but he is harbouring a dark secret. 

The Skin I Live In was directed by Pedro Almodovar well-known for directing other melo-dramas like All About my Mother and Talk to Her. These films also explored themes like transgenderism while navigating dark content with morally dubious characters. The Skin I Live In explored the same themes with the same level of darkness. This made it really difficult for me to get on with this film.

Big spoilers to follow

It's never a bad thing if films have morally complicated characters and, even better if they're morally dubious. This is what makes them interesting. However, there is a balance that needs to be struck. They can't be so morally deprived that the viewer loses interest in following them altogether. That's what happened here. There wasn't one character that I really wanted to root for.

Dr Robert Ledgard is the protagonist of the film so it's only natural that you want to root for him especially when you learn that he has a tragic past - both his wife and daughter died in tragic circumstances. Yet he has allowed this trauma to turn him into a resentful, bitter man engaging in human experimentation. Not the most likeable of characters.

Logic would then suggest that you should empathise with Ledgard's guinea pig: Vera - she is the woman that Ledgard has been experimenting on. Initially, she is very empathetic - THAT is until you find out about her dark past. Or should I say HIS dark past. Because Vera was a man called Vicente who secretly raped Ledgard's daughter Norma (Blanca Suarez.) 

The trauma of this coupled with the darkness surrounding her mother led to Norma taking her own life. And then this led to Ledgard holding Vicente hostage and effectively turning him into a woman. It's all messed up and weird, but Vera stopped being empathetic when you found out she began life as a male rapist. This isn't to belittle Elena Anaya's performance. She was well-deserving of the Goya award for Best Actress.

What characters are there left? Marilia (Marisa Peredes) Dr Ledgard's housekeeper and secret mother. Not only is she his mother but also mother to the horrific criminal Zeca (Roberto Alamo) who after having committed a robbery confronts Marilia at home and goes onto rape Vera. It's revealed that he and Ledgard are half-brothers - not that either of them know it, nor does it really pertain to the plot. It all felt like gratuitous, unjustified violence. And considering Marilia lies to everybody and is indirectly the reason Vera gets raped, it doesn't endear her to the viewer either.

What about poor Dr Ledgard's wife? Surely, you can like her? Well, Gal had a secret affair with Zeca and the two of them run off together. That is until a horrific car crash which Gal survives albeit with awful third-degree burns. There's not really a likeable character among the bunch.

And it's not a likeable film. I feel like there was a lot that I could have liked, but this was all undone by the unnecessary dark nature of the film.