The Skin I Live In

As a big Pedro Almodovar fan, I was looking forward to watching this film since I heard it was being made but only just got round to watching it.

Antonio Banderas plays a surgeon suffering from a series of personal tragedies who is trying to develop a synthetic skin for burns victims. But his experiments take an unexpected turn when something sinister happens to a member of his family.

It's hard to write about this film without giving too much away but it's a very quirky and original film. There's a lot of scenes you don't see coming and the timeline of this film is quite unusual. It jumps around between the past and present day so there's a few points during the film in which the viewer has to take a few minutes to piece it together to make sense of it. It's well worth the effort though.

As usual, Antonio Banderas is excellent. Although he's a well-known actor, he makes it very easy to see past that and believe he really is the character and his emotions are portrayed very effectively. This isn't a typical Almodovar film, other than it's completely mad, but his talent is obvious and this film is an excellent edition to his impressive catalogue so far. There's less of Almodovar's signature bright colours here- the rooms are more grey and clinical with sharp edges and shadowy corners, but it works for the film.

Altogether very well acted and expertly directed, after watching The Skin I Live In, revenge will never look the same again.