Introduction
Looking at the poster for The Skin I Live In (2011), one might think that it was a Spanish remake of Eyes without A Face (1960). The films do have parallels. There are two doe-eyed young women with masks on their faces. Yet, they are very different films. The Skin I Live In strikes the viewer as disturbing, as well as the multiple ways in which it stumbles into very modern territories that may have been missed ten years ago.
Is it possible for a fully made film to blossom like this over a decade after its release? This film definitely does. In fact, this horror film may have been ahead of its time. If it were released today, it would have countless op-eds and think pieces written about what it says about gender identity, consent, and the nature of revenge.
There are truly numerous potential interpretations with regards to director Pedro Almodóvar’s The Skin I Live In. Based on these interpretations, you may tend to believe that multiple things can be true at once. As a result, one may legitimately read all of these in the film simultaneously. Or you can pick and choose.
Synopsis
As The Skin I Live In opens, we meet a legendary plastic surgeon (Antonio Banderas) named Robert. We are also introduced to a beautiful female patient (Elena Anaya) who appears to be living under surveillance in his home. She wears a flesh-colored bodysuit and does yoga, presumably for his pleasure.
We also learn that this surgeon is so obsessed with creating a beautiful woman in part because his late wife was burned in a horrific fire. The wife was recovering, but caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and was so upset by this that she threw herself over the balcony and landed in front of her young daughter, Norma, who was singing outside.
Years later a teenage Norma (Blanca Suarez) is at a party. She sneaks off with a boy named Vicente (Jan Cornet) to have sex, but that same song she was singing the day her mother died starts playing at the party. This traumatizes her and she goes into a panic. The boy has no idea why but doesn’t stop having his way with her.
She passes out and he leaves, leaving her father to find her in this state. The father then tracks down Vicente, who works at the dress shop that his mother owns, and keeps him captive for a while before giving him a sex change surgery without his consent. We learn – with increasing horror – that he is turning this young man into a woman. Not just any woman, but the spitting image of his ex-wife.
Vincente/Vera
Vicente becomes Vera against his will (I will use he/him pronouns to talk about Vicente/Vera interchangeably) and starts to lose hope that he will ever be himself again. As a result, he starts to embrace being Vera. We also wonder if Vera is actually falling in love with the doctor. When another doctor puts the pieces together and confronts Robert, Vera appears and proudly states that he is Vera because he wants to be.
He makes a show out of being happy with his disposition, even going so far as to sit on the doctor’s lap and kiss him passionately. This so pleases Robert that he allows Vera to leave for the day to go shopping. Vera returns, proving that he can trust his captive-turned-lover. This is essentially a reverse Stockholm Syndrome.
Of course, this is all part of her plan. Vera shoots Robert and escapes and the film ends with Vera returning to the shop that his mother ran. He tells the employee there that he is Vicente. The employee sees that this is true and calls Vicente’s mother over. The film ends with the three of them looking at each other. The Skin I Live In is filled with twists and turns, typical of an Almodovar film. Here are some fascinating ways to read into it:
Consent
The Skin I Live In is definitely a horror story about consent told in several ways. There is an obvious lack of consent after the doctor’s daughter tells Vicente to stop during sex. There is also the lack of medical consent that Vicente gives to the mad scientist to give him a sex change. No one consents to be in either nightmarish position. In both of these nightmares, it’s a man forcing a woman (or a woman’s body) to do what he wants.
Male Ownership Over the Female Body
No woman in this movie has ownership of her own body at all. Vicente has ownership over Robert’s daughter’s body, but when he is turned into a woman, the doctor now has complete ownership and control over his body.
Even the doctor’s female servant does not have ownership of her body when her criminal son pays her a visit. He ties his own mother to a chair so that she won’t stop him from forcing himself on Vera. Men dominate women over and over in this movie. Further, it is a man that the doctor wants to dominate that has to be turned into a woman for him to comfortably dominate her.
Trans Identity
In The Skin I Live In, one can see an allegory for the trans experience, but in reverse. Vicente is a man. He knows who he is, but now he has to live in the world as a woman. He knows that he is not the female body that the outside world sees him as and he rejects the trappings of femininity that are being thrust on him. This ranges from makeup and dresses to meeting the male gaze.
At first, you may think that this character is wearing a flesh-colored bodysuit. This is because that’s how the surgeon dresses the patient for his own enjoyment. As the film goes on, however, the viewer realizes that it is Vicente’s choice not to wear the feminine clothes he is being given. He actually takes scissors to the dresses and skirts that are delivered to his room. He wants to live freely as his true self, as Vicente, without having to perform acts of femininity.
Thus, the final scene in which he comes to his mom and former co-worker and tells them that he is Vicente is, in essence, a coming-out scene. They see a female-presenting person in front of them. However, it is Vicente telling them that he is a man. Despite appearances, he IS a man, and he is coming out as one.
God Complexes
The Skin I Live In is definitely a modern Frankenstein story whereby a mad scientist’s god complex is taking over his grief. Ultimately, however, Robert’s grief is overshadowed by his hubris and his desire to dominate his creation. It heightens Mary Shelley’s original premise by giving the doctor this very specific motivation so that his god complex comes from multiple angles.
Yes, Robert is feeling powerful and drunk from having medical control of Vicente. Yet, he is also driven by the lack of control that he had over his own wife and daughter, blaming himself for their demise. Ultimately, the opportunity to have total control over his creation is far too intoxicating for Robert to ignore.
Robert also starts his horrific torture of Vicente to avenge the rape of his daughter. However, The Skin I Live In shockingly turns the rape-revenge genre upside down by having Robert take his torture way too far. Robert’s need for vengeance melts away as his god complex fully takes him over.
Trauma
All of the characters in The Skin I Live In are also acting from places of trauma. Because of this, they make mistakes and choices based on that extreme trauma. This is what makes these scenes so messy. This is also why we shift our point of identification from character to character. When we understand their trauma, we root for them to do the best they can in the situation, and understand when they don’t.
Vicente is the only one who was not introduced to us with trauma. However, we witness his traumatic events unfold. The doctor’s maid, the doctor, the maid’s son, the doctor’s wife, and the daughter, Norma, all have severe traumas and act in response to these traumas. Often in self-destructive ways. When watching, you understand why they are acting in certain ways, but you’re internally squirming as they do it.
Regarding rape, research shows that the nature of the initial rape is somewhat nebulous according to the reviews. Reviews at the time contend that it was. One even said that this was not a rape, but rather a sexual assault. Regardless, they are both bad. Vicente did not understand why his date, Norma, was suddenly panicking. Still, he should have asked her what was happening rather than try to stop her from screaming so he could continue.
This is why it is rape. It’s interesting too to see how even the perception of that scene has changed over the years. In a post #MeToo world, one would hope that we all understand that someone telling you to stop, means that you should stop. It also appears that in some film blogs only a few years ago, this was still a topic that was up for debate.
Further Analysis
This character would have no idea how or why Norma was suddenly acting that way. Further, even if he did stop, he might never know. Imagine if he had stopped and then lived his life thinking that he hurt Norma. That also would have been captivating, but an entirely different film.
There is a part of the audience that wants Vicente to explain what happened to Robert. That if Robert heard why his daughter panicked, then. perhaps, he might explain that response to Vicente. Then all of the torture would be over. But Vicente didn’t actually know what happened, and Robert would never be made to understand.
There is so much hopelessness in The Skin That I Live In that it mirrors the hopelessness of being a victim in an attack like that. This is all to say that even at that moment, one can still feel sympathy for him not knowing. However, the sympathy goes away when he keeps going and then hops on his motorcycle to ride away into the night. Viewing this film is filled with conflicting feelings like that, and it continues to flip again and again.
This is what is so beautiful about Almodovar. He makes us hold space for both and makes us shift our sympathies, understandings, and frustrations from character to character within seconds. The Skin That I Live In sets a complicated and masterful tone. The film is more necessary a decade after its release than ever before. It encourages us to look at difficult, horrific stories from multiple angles. It also demands nuance while being grotesque. The film is wholly unique and deserving of a rewatch.
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