The Skin I Live In (Spanish: La piel que habito) is a 2011 Spanish psychological thriller film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar, starring Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya, Marisa Paredes, Jan Cornet and Roberto Álamo. It is based on Thierry Jonquet's 1984 novel Mygale, first published in French and then in English under the title Tarantula. Almodóvar has described the film as "a horror story without screams or frights". The film was the first collaboration in 21 years between Almodóvar and Banderas since Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1990). It premiered in competition at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, and won Best Film Not in the English Language at the 65th BAFTA Awards. It was also nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film and 16 Goya Awards.
Plot Plastic surgeon Robert Ledgard successfully cultivates an artificial skin resistant to burns and insect bites. Calling it "Gal", he claims to be testing it on athymic mice. Presenting at a medical symposium, Ledgard privately discloses that he has conducted illegal transgenic experiments on humans. He is forbidden to continue with his research. On his secluded estate, Ledgard holds captive a young woman named Vera with the help of his servant, Marilia. There he continues his illegal experiments. While Ledgard is out, Marilia's estranged son, Zeca, arrives after having committed a robbery. He asks Marilia to hide him for a few days. Seeing Vera on Ledgard's security camera screens, Zeca mistakes her for Ledgard's deceased wife, Gal, and demands to see her in person. When Marilia refuses, Zeca binds and gags Marilia and then rapes Vera. Ledgard arrives and kills Zeca. While Ledgard disposes of Zeca's corpse, Marilia reveals to Vera that both Zeca and Ledgard are half-brothers and her sons, unknown to them. Ledgard was adopted by Marilia's employers, though raised by Marilia, and later went to medical school and married a woman named Gal. Raised without privilege as Marilia’s son, Zeca eventually left to live in the streets and smuggle drugs. When Zeca returned years later, Gal fell in love with him. Zeca and Gal decided to run off together but were involved in a car crash in which Gal was badly burnt. Assuming Gal to be dead, Zeca left the scene of the accident. Ledgard took Gal home, keeping her in total darkness, without any mirror, to hide her burn scars. One day, while hearing her daughter Norma singing in the garden, Gal saw her own reflection in the window. Traumatized by the sight, Gal jumped to her death in front of Norma. After disposing of Zeca’s corpse, in the present, Ledgard returns and spends the night with an acquiescent Vera. Ledgard dreams of the night of a wedding six years earlier, when he found his daughter Norma unconscious on the ground, having been raped. Mentally unstable after witnessing her mother's suicide, under the effects of antipsychotic medication, a disoriented Norma saw Ledgard bending over her and mistakenly believed he raped her. Developing a fear of all men, Norma spent years in a mental health facility, eventually committing suicide as her mother had. Simultaneously in the present, Vera, too, dreams of the same event. Vicente (whose identity is disclosed later) crashed the wedding and met Norma. In the garden, under the influence of drugs, Norma began to take off her clothes. Vicente kissed her, and they lay down on the ground engaging in sexual activity that confused and overwhelmed Norma. When ambient music changed to the song Norma was singing when she witnessed her mother's suicide, Norma started screaming. Vicente attempted to hush her screams, knocking her unconscious. Vicente fled the scene, unaware that Ledgard saw him leave on his motorbike. Tracking down Vicente, Ledgard kidnapped him and held him captive, brutalizing him over a prolonged period. As punishment for raping his daughter, Ledgard made Vicente a human guinea pig for his experiments. Over a period of six years, Ledgard physically transformed Vicente into a replica of his late wife, using transgenesis and shaping Vicente’s physical appearance—moulding a vagina, breasts, hips, buttocks, and feminine voice—and renaming him Vera. In the present, Ledgard's new relationship with Vera dismays Marilia, who does not trust Vera. Fulgencio, one of Ledgard's colleagues, reads a news story about the missing Vicente and recognizes him in Vera. He accuses Ledgard of falsifying Vicente's consent and of experimenting on him. Vera, who overhears their conversation, tells Fulgencio that she is here by her own free will, denies being Vicente, and says that she always was a woman. After Fulgencio leaves, Vera notices a photograph of himself as Vicente attached to the news story about missing persons. During the night, Ledgard and Vera start having sex, but Vera tells him that it is still painful after Zeca's rape. Ostensibly going downstairs to find lubricant, Vera retrieves Ledgard's gun and kills him. Marilia, alerted by the sound of the shot, barges into the bedroom with her own pistol in hand and finds her son Ledgard dead on the bed. Vera, who is hiding under the bed, shoots and kills Marilia. With her final breath, Marilia says "I knew it." Freed from captivity and the need to play along with Ledgard's whims, Vicente returns to his mother's dress shop for the first time since being kidnapped. Tearfully, he tells his lesbian ex-colleague Cristina (whom Vicente had loved six years prior) of his kidnapping, forced sex change, and the murders. As his mother enters the room, Vicente quietly reveals his identity to them: "I am Vicente."
Cast
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