Getting Cut: The Skin I Live In (Pedro Almodovar, 2011)
How many operations? How much time do you need?
We're getting closer: Dead Teenagers #3 will be out next Wednesday, May 20. You can catch up by getting Dead Teenagers #1 and #2 from your comic shop or the usual digital retailers.
In the meantime, DILF: Did I Leave Feminism is still available, in both book and smell form. You can also pre-order Be Not Afraid, which will be out in collected edition in July.
Clayface: Celebrity Dirt is coming July 8. You can prep by watching this interview with Comics Watch and counting how many times I say "goo."
First things first: I did not know the central “twist” of The Skin I Live In before I watched it. This might be the ideal way to see the movie. It might also come as an assault on your very personhood that leaves you wanting to throw a pint glass through your TV screen; that wasn’t my reaction, but I can imagine it having that effect on plenty of people I know.
What I knew about The Skin I Live In, going into it, is that people who had seen it tended to shift around uncomfortably and avoid eye contact and describe it as “like, really fucked up.” A few said “I would be really interested to see what you think of it,” in a tone that, in retrospect, should have seemed more ominous than it did. Based on all this, I was expecting sexual assault — and boy, did I get it — but I was definitely not expecting the precise assault on bodily and/or sexual autonomy that takes place over the course of this film.
What is that assault? Why are people so uncomfortable talking about it? Why would my perspective, specifically, be important? I cannot drop these hints any heavier. Thus, if you want to spare your pint glasses and/or TV, stop reading — and, if you really want to know, click on through, for a special deleted scene from the movie itself: