The Skin I Live In

A lithe young woman contorts and stretches her body into spikey yoga angles. She wears a body sock that covers every inch of her from the neck down. She is fed from a stainless steel dumbwaiter, her food drugged. She molds endless clay busts with make-up materials, and is desperate to mutilate herself. She is trapped, and surveyed. Treated like property, owned by a brilliant surgeon with a mahogany tan, and a kink for opium. He pores over her form, examining and assessing. Molding her. Making her perfect. The Skin I Live In is about domination and control, a glacial dissection of gender roles in sexual power plays. Regardless of class, or intellectual standing, men in Skin want to fuck and overwhelm their women. They are uncomplicated and naive, assured by their capacity to penetrate. The women are duplicitous and conniving, concealing agenda. They feign the submission their partners desire. In Almodóvar's film having a vagina doesn't make you weaker, it makes you stronger. It allows you to trap.