Review of The Skin I Live In (2011) by Jenna I — 10 Jan 2017

Oh my god, a movie hasn't broken my brain the way this one did in a looooooong time. For the first hour I was like "okay, this is strange, don't know what the point is... are these flashbacks? okay... why is this being shown this wa--oh my god..... OH MY GOD." and repeat, until the very last minute of the movie. I'm not even sure I've fully wrapped my head around this one yet so bear with me here.

I think what makes this movie so successful is that it feels like a giant mirror. There's a lot of messed up shit here that you almost want to blame on Almodovar for having chosen to include, but at the end of the day I can't blame him because it's simply just everyday life. The boy who grows up with strong women and still rapes, the man who preaches moral good and still violates others, the concept of being a woman as punishment, the male libido power struggles, the Odalisque paintings juxtaposed with surveillance voyeurism.... Almodovar wraps all of this terror up in a beautiful bow and presents it to us in as otherworldly surrealist horror film with striking color, imagery, lighting and style. It's all at once so clearly his own world and yet just a dark mirror of ours.