Review of The Skin I Live In (2011) by Rodrigo H — 25 Mar 2012

Even when the story does not make sense, Almodovar is always haunting. No one else makes revenge and obsession this beautiful. My main issue with Almodovar is that his male characters are all pathetic, 2-dimensional monsters.

Only the women characters have any depth. I think that to him men and penises are the same thing. So in this movie he takes this bias to its limit, a man only becomes a fully developed human being (attaining internal peace and all that), after he has been completely transformed into a woman.

Of course I don't subscribe to that view at all (a sort of gender version of the noble savage), but his direction is always beautiful and haunting.