If you've missed this fitfully regular column over the past days, its purpose is to introduce a smattering of our most anticipated films from the coming Cannes film festival (two days and counting until launch). So bearing in mind that the festival kicks off this week, the last few of these articles will come at greater frequency over the next few days. And now, without further ado, to the film that I think is going to be the enduring experience that I take away from this year's fest, namely
Pedro Almodovar's The Skin I Live In. I don't necessarily think it will win the coveted Palme d'Or - though there is a distinct possibility if it's is done right - but I think it will be one of the most affecting films to screen this year on the Croisette. Based on
Thierry Jonque's 2005 novel
Tarantula, Almodovar's latest has been turning heads already thanks to this creepy and utterly intriguing synopsis:
Ever since his wife was burned in a car crash, Dr. Robert Ledgard (Antonio Banderas), an eminent plastic surgeon, has been interested in creating a new skin with which he could have saved her. After twelve years, he manages to cultivate a skin that is a real shield against every assault. In addition to years of study and experimentation, Robert needed a further three things: no scruples, an accomplice and a human guinea pig. Scruples were never a problem. Marilia, the woman who looked after him from the day he was born, is his most faithful accomplice. And as for the human guinea pig
Personally I love the idea of star
Antonio Banderas playing a menacing figure: the actor has incredible intensity, which made the
El Mariachi trilogy so much more than the B-Movie mexploitations they may have simply been without him. And judging by the teaser trailer that appears below, Almodovar is basing the potential success of his "horror" aspect on Banderas' on-screen charisma. Regardless of what heinous acts he commits, or what else we see on screen, everything chilling about the film looks like it's going to come directly from what we see of the lead.
Reasons to be Excited Almodovar plainly doesn't make bad movies. Which is why he can reasonably be counted as Spain's finest directing talent. The Almodovar/Banderas re-team up: theirs is a creative marriage made in heaven, and one that has already been responsible for giving birth to some of the most affecting and provocative film-making Spain has ever produced. And judging by what Almodovar has been saying, it looks like provocative is what the team are shooting for this time round as well:
"The film will be a terror film, without screams or scares. Its difficult to define and although it comes close to the terror genre something that appeals to me that Ive never done I wont respect any of its rules. Its the harshest film Ive ever written and Banderas character is brutal."
Almodovar has already won twice at Cannes, so his inclusion speaks volumes of the Official Selection team's commitment to quality this year. The teaser looks great... To fill in some of the gaps created by the creative ambiguity of the official synopsis, below is the synopsis of the original text, which offers a little more insight into what we might see:
Richard Lafargue is an eminent plastic surgeon haunted by dirty secrets. He has an operating theatre in the basement of his chateau and keeps his partner Eve imprisoned in her bedroom, a room he has equipped with an intercom and 300-watt speakers through which he bellows orders. Eve is only allowed out to be paraded at cocktail parties and on the last Sunday of each month, when the couple visit a young woman in a mental asylum. Following these outings, Lafargue humiliates Eve by forcing her to perform lewd sexual acts with strangers while he watches through a one-way mirror. In alternating chapters, Jonquet introduces seemingly unrelated characters: a criminal on the run after murdering a policeman, and an abducted young man who finds himself chained naked in a dark chamber, forced to endure all manner of physical torture at the hands of a mysterious stranger, whom he calls Mygale, after a type of tropical spider. All of these characters are caught in a deceitful web, doomed to meet their fate.
But Be Wary I'm still not 100% on Almodovar's proclamation that The Skin I Live In will be a horror "without screams or scares", but in the context of Almodovar's past works, I think the director has gained our trust enough to chase even the oddest of concepts. Bring the festival experience home this year on Blu-ray Disc keep up to date with all the latest Blu-ray news at the
Blu-ray Disc Reporter.