The Skin I Live In Analysis

The Skin I Live In (2011) is a psychological thriller and horror film once again written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar. Almodóvar describes this film as a horror story without screams or frights.It is based on the novel “Tarantula”. This film consists of identity issues and acceptance followed by horrific sexual scenes. Robert is a doctor who emphasis in the skin field, he presents his results in a medical symposium but when he secretly admits that he indeed has conducted illegal experiments on humans he is forbidden to carryon with his research. Robert has a young woman named Vera living in his house under a locked empty room. Due to his suspension of his research experiments he demands Marilla to dismiss the other servants. Marillia’s son Zeca arrives to the house and asks …show more content…
One of the most dangerous of those boundaries is the line, always wavy and anxiously policed, between topics that we should and should not find funny.” Zeca rapes Vera providing the audience with a “comic climate” in which we are invited to laugh despite the tragic situation occurring. In this scene Zeca approaches Vera in a tiger costume, he not only acts as an animal but is very aggressive towards Vera, the background non diegetic music playing during this scene is really fast upbeat tempo in a way eliminating the horrific realism which is Vera getting rape. This scene (33:31-35:46), is an inter-text of the film Kika (1993) when a woman is forced to watch another woman get rape and in the film The Skin I Live In, Marilla is tied in a chair in front of the camera screen watching his son perform sexual intercourse with Vera. This movie has a twist because Vera is actually a guy Vicente whom raped D. Roberts daughter. As a form of revenge Robert tracks down Vicente and kidnaps