La piel que habito

Written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar 

Starring Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya, Marisa Paredes, and Jan Cornet

Alright folks, Martyn and I seriously took one for the team this time around. Not only did my urine come out brown and cloudy this morning (looking much like unfiltered apple cider) but this movie was worse than most things. Many people may take this with a grain of salt, since my modus operandi for film reviews consists of drinking heavily and seeing mediocre action flicks, but I know my art film and I’ve seen Mulholland Drive and understood it so when I say this movie was not merely worse than most movies but most THINGS, you had better believe it suckers.

Here are some things I’d rather do than watch La piel que habito:

• Get kicked in the junk (perhaps not with cleats or boots but a shoeless foot or a pair of casual shoes or trainers would be acceptable)
• Sit in traffic for two hours
• Shave a really hairy guy’s back
• Witness a robbery or two hookers fighting in the street and spend the whole day in a police station giving a deposition
• Have my back shaved by a really hairy guy



It came out like this, for reals

• Have someone step on my blue suede shoes

For serious people, this movie made me wish that I had one of those red flashing Batphones that I could use upon my return home, only instead of linking me up to Commissioner Gordon it would go straight to Hisashi Owada’s office at the International Court of Justice.

Me: Yo Shishi, what’s the good word brother?

Hisashi Owada: Yeah, yeah, you know, same as ever. Breakin teeth, breakin hearts. This geezer Goran Hadžić was here the other week, getting all up in my grill talking all kinds of smack so I had to set him right, you know, gave him a good coupla slaps so he know Daddy Owady don’t play no shit.

Me: Yea, that’s straight-up yakuza. You gonna give him the chair?

Hisashi Owada: Fucking-A right I’m giving him the chair! The hammer’s gon’ fall on all those death-dealing Serbo roundeyes. Daddy don’t sleep till alla dem is hangin from the business end of a rope, son.

Me: Word.

Hisashi Owada: So what’s the skinny, B-money? I’m kinda busy here you know. Slow justice is no justice.

Me: Dude I need you to look into Pedro Almodóvar for me.

Hisashi Owada: What for?

Me: Crimes against humanity.

Hisashi Owada: For Skin?

Me: 2 right, 2 right.

Hisashi Owada: Yeah, no surprise there. Connery called earlier saying the same damn thing. I’ll make sure the charges stick.

Me: Nice. Big up yourself, brother. Tell your daughter I said what’s up.

Daddy Owady finds your lack of faith disturbing

Only I have no Batphone so instead of that I went home and passed out cold after dry-heaving for a few minutes. Martyn later reported falling asleep on the tube, waking up in Morden, and taking a night bus home at stupid o’clock. Fair to say we paid our share to bring you this review, so you had better read it.

Right, the movie. The audience is essentially parachuted into the middle of an ongoing narrative, with critical plot points unveiled gradually as the film lumbers forward. Robert Ledgard (Antonio Banderas) is a prominent surgeon and geneticist who, by conducting clandestine experiments on a beautiful young patient imprisoned in his house (Elena Anaya), has developed completely flame-resistant skin that looks and feels natural. The announcement of his discovery to the scientific community generates a lot of chatter but it may be tricky for him to reveal his results since his only test subject is a hostage in a spandex bodysuit. When Ledgard’s estranged half-brother later shows up to his house dressed like a fat tiger (see the trailer if you don’t believe me!), discovers the girl, and decides to get his rape on, the mess just gets messier.

La piel que habito treads conventional Almodóvar ground, exploring isolation, sexual identity, the significance of blood ties, and by “exploring” I mean he beats you over the head with them until the banging ceases to make sense. These are things everyone has surely thought over at some point, but the narrative and characters are so bat-shit crazy and far-removed from reality that their world becomes a grotesquely indulgent exaggeration of emotions otherwise worth exploring. Even if you manage to overlook the film’s unabashedly and gratuitously lurid turns, it is one of the most manipulative things you’ll ever watch. I must have watched half of this movie with my jaw agape in wonder at how useless and psychotic it becomes, but I still wouldn’t go so far as to say it has “shock value” because to attribute any kind of value to Skin would be heresy.

Nice car ruined

Halfway through the longest two hours of my life and desperate, I tried pummeling through a 6 oz. hip flask of 86-proof Dalwhinnie 15yo. I was incorrect in my assumption that it would make the film easier to digest or forget; I remember every miserable moment of it and getting liquored up only made me wish incessantly that Antonio Banderas would get into a wicked car chase in this pimpin’ BMW M6 with 18” mags he rolls around in but he only ends up driving that thing in an out of his driveway. The only car chase-ish scene (and I say “ish” because Almodóvar directs a car chase like Kubrick directs space travel, YAAAAWWWN) sees Banderas driving a panel van and that’s just a huge waste of time, action/adventure star power, and built-up anticipation. The booze also makes you want to ogle the sublime Elena Anaya, who is paraded shamelessly around the screen nude or in skin-tight outfits for the entire movie, only Almodóvar throws a plot twist halfway into the film that makes you not want to ogle her anymore. Not only can he ruin your evening, this cat can also ruin a hot girl for life, which adds teasing to his ever-expanding list of tricks alongside self-indulgence and pretension.

Nice girl ruined

Sure, you could turn around and say “you’re a fine one to talk, this whole blog is self-indulgent” (which it is) but I’m still right and this movie is still bull’s pizzle and Hisashi Owada is still getting a call from me as soon as I can find his phone number or locate him on Facebook. Because yeah, I was totally kidding before. We’re totally not friends. Yet.

Damage: 8/10 (pre-movie: one measure Talisker 10yo, ½ bottle Cava Brut; during movie: 2 x 500 ml cans of Kronenbourg 1664, 6 oz Dalwhinnie 15yo; post-movie: one measure Talisker)

Boozy rating: 1/10 (the movie made me want to never drink again more than the drinking did)

Next week: Cowboys and Aliens (for real this time)