Posts tagged The Skin I Live In

“Unnecessarily Shocking”

“Hotshots” looks at a movie!

The Skin I Live In is the latest movie from Spanish writer and director Pedro Almodovar, and of all the movies that he has made, this is one of them.

The story begins in 2012 in Toledo, Spain, and there will be some flashbacks and dream sequences designed to enlighten and confuse the audience, respectively, whereas the purpose of the whole movie is just to lead up to a whopping shocker at the end.

Antonio Banderas plays Dr. Robert Ledgard, a renowned plastic surgeon who is experimenting with developing artificial skin that is sensitive to gentle touches and yet at the same time is indestructible.

The reason that Robert is obsessed with creating this artificial skin is that years earlier his wife was in an automobile accident in which her skin was horribly burned, and she died as a result of that accident.

So, Robert has a patient locked up in his house, a beautiful young woman named Vera whose whole body is being covered with the artificial skin.

One day Vera cuts herself across her breasts, and Robert saves her and repairs the damage, but Vera says, “If you want me to stop breathing, kill me.”

Robert points out to her that if she had really wanted to kill herself, she would have cut her jugular vein.

Robert uses pig cells to strengthen the artificial skin, which is illegal, and he is ordered to stop his experiments or else he will be reported to the scientific and medical communities.

Of course, he doesn’t, because otherwise there wouldn’t be any movie.

Robert keeps Vera locked up in her room, but he can observe her with all the surveillance cameras he has installed, and we learn more about Vera, Robert’s housekeeper, visitors to Robert’s house, and even about Robert himself.

When Robert is finished, Vera can boast of having the best skin in the world, but apparently Vera has now become attracted to Robert, and she tells him that she wants to live together with him as equals, like everyone else.

However, Robert’s housekeeper warns Robert that he has to kill Vera or Vera will kill herself. She also says that Robert shouldn’t have constructed Vera’s face to resemble the face of his dead wife.

The Skin I Live In is unnecessarily shocking and becomes even more unnecessarily shocking.

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”