Almodóvar’s Carriage Turns into a Pumpkin
Pedro Almodóvar’s latest offering, “The Skin I Live In,” attempts to shock and titillate, but ultimately falls flat, revealing a director more interested in surface-level provocation than genuine emotional depth.
The film centers on a brilliant but disturbed plastic surgeon, Robert Ledgard (Antonio Banderas), haunted by the loss of his wife and daughter. Consumed by grief and a thirst for vengeance, he kidnaps a young man and, through a series of radical surgeries, transforms him into a replica of his deceased wife, Vera (Elena Anaya). Instead of embracing this new identity, the young man, Vincente, is horrified and attempts suicide. However, Ledgard is determined to prolong his torment, trapping him in a body that is not his own.
From Provocation to Kitsch
What was once considered groundbreaking and transgressive in Almodóvar’s earlier work now feels like tired and predictable kitsch. The director, once a subversive voice, seems to have morphed into a purveyor of sanitized transgression, catering to the fantasies of a bourgeois audience. Gone is the confessional intimacy that characterized his best films, replaced by a self-conscious desire to shock and impress.
It’s difficult to discern whether the problem lies with the audience, the director, or both. Perhaps what once felt like a sensational provocation now appears as mere artifice. Almodóvar remains Almodóvar, but the elements that captivated audiences in the 80s and 90s now feel like cheap theatrics. The film is so uninspired that it’s hardly worth analyzing whether the director is attempting humor or preaching a message. While a critic could invoke references to Pygmalion, Frankenstein, transsexuality, gender theory, and Bakhtin’s concept of the carnivalesque, these intellectual exercises ultimately add nothing to the film’s substance.
Sterile and Soulless
“The Skin I Live In” possesses a sterile quality, akin to an operating room where the germs of cultural myths fail to take root. The art of filmmaking takes a backseat to a fashionable spectacle, prioritizing the names of Almodóvar, Gaultier, and Banderas. The plot resembles a melodramatic soap opera. While these elements were present in his previous works, they lacked the drive, energy, and raw emotion that defined Almodóvar’s signature style. Without that vital energy, the film remains mere trash, regardless of its production value.