In a 5.19.11 posting from Cannes I called Pedro Almodovar‘s The Skin That I Live “a wicked-camp thing” that’s “played more-or-less straight…a highly perverse and lusciously sensuous film about a mad plastic surgeon (Antonio Banderas) who recreates his dead wife and daughter with…well, let’s not say.

“The story is also about rape-payback and revenge and a selfish young hound getting a taste of his own medicine and having the tables turned. That’s vague enough, I think.

“See it at a midnight screening with a hip gay crowd and prepare for doses of exceedingly dry humor and strange-itude in the general vein of David Cronenberg‘s Dead Ringers and Georges Franju‘s Eyes Without A Face.

“Let’s take a wild guess and suppose that straight, hamburger-eating, ESPN-watching guys are not going to beat down the doors to see this. But I like burgers and I had a enjoyable, better-than-okay time with it. It’s a first-class effort, beautifully shot by Jose Luis Alcaine (Volver, Bad Education) and assured and technically spot-on, etc.

“I’m a devout Pedro guy from way back, but I prefer his more soulful, deep-well stuff.”