The Skin I Live In

Ally the Manic Listmaker

My review: http://cinemabecomesher.blogspot.com/2011/08/la-piel-que-habitothe-skin-i-live-in.html My Almodovar rankings: http://mubi.com/lists/pedro-almodovar (seen all his major feature-length films)

Huey McEvoy

A deliciously campy, fucked-up little Gothic horror. Forgive me, Pedro, for doubting you during the first act - it soon reaches peak Almodóvar. Shooting it as a period piece, perhaps even in monochrome, would have been an interesting experiment in noir pastiche.

Zach Closs

Almodóvar's gender-bending horror melodrama is easily one of the most provocative and formally brilliant films of the new millennium. Patiently paced, but not a minute is wasted. Chronology is ignored: dreams, flashbacks and monologues lay out the puzzle pieces, like the many jagged fragments of Ledgard's skin. Identity, sexuality and morality, meanwhile, are confronted by a passion memory both enables and forbids.

f-nanda

Almodóvar has fried some brains with this story. For sure, mine was. I kind of enjoy the way he ended it but I'd like something more... realistic? Really that just because of a talk about a dress, someone would believe that nonsense? I don't know. It's mindblowing. Perfect scenario and amazing shots. "The skin I live in" is a perfect title and makes you question: Is this skin really representing me?

Duncan Gray

Almodovar shakes himself out of a rut with one of his most shocking films. This is a "gender studies horror movie" much the same way that Peeping Tom is a "media theory horror movie." The horror comes from a morbid interplay between inner identity and outward appearance—and how we're stuck with one even if it doesn't fit the other. One of the most lucid, purposeful, & unshakable of his films.

Risya

Great direction and screenplay with the deepest darkest subjects of fantasies we could possibly imagine. The music featured is a great companion too. This film is beautiful to look at aesthetically, although for many times its quite disturbing, but it has a genuinely surprising twist. Antonio Banderas is terrific as the leading man and Elena Anaya beauty is mesmerizing.

ramosbarajas

At the same time very distinctly Almodovar and still alien. It is incredibly cold and scientific. The characters do not make you empathize a lot, that is until the very end. The end is reminiscent of his other films, maybe a scene that would fit in All About My Mother. Anyway, technically, it's a great film. It was executed with the grace and expertise of Almodovar.

Zachary George Najarian-Najafi

I was expecting something good, but what I was not expecting was to be floored. Almodovar is quickly becoming one of my new favorite directors. The Skin I Live In is a creepy medical thriller crossed with a soap opera, and shot through a kaleidoscope. Banderas gives a searing performance here, his magnetic intensity demands the viewers attention. Plus it's just a great movie.