Movies that show results from the beginning are incredible. Achievements refer to the established reality that has undergone a series of changes. Uncommon "achievements" require even more unusual "changes." If the change is just to match the results, it will only increase the audience's incredible confusion and make the film become formalism or even a gimmick. This narrative structure is destined to continue to throw suspense in the film, allowing the audience to keep expectation and inquiries about various reasons.
This is the opening posture, but it is easy to put it horribly. Such a structural method is a challenge. The so-called master's posture is not a flash of light, it is enough to hold up the light, and it is a platform built with careful thinking, repeated consideration and in-depth thinking.
The results of "The Skin of My Living" are shown very clearly at the beginning. A house with good conditions, hidden in the mountains and forests of Spain, can be said to be isolated from the world. Road to reach the house. The beautiful woman is doing yoga on the second floor, but her actions are under the control of the monitor. Under the tights, we seem to be able to see her beautiful figure, but also seem to be invisible. Uncertainty always implies ambiguity. Suspense arises naturally like flowing water. The secret and slightly mechanical representation tells us that this is not a life story. There are many secrets behind all this.
Most people have seen Robert perform sex change and plastic surgery for Vincent, treating it as a metamorphosis, even the revenge has to be so distorted, but they have not thought about why the perverts have come to this step, and how his psychology is winding up and down.
Passing the suffering to others is still the normal revenge. The advanced version destroys everything that is originally light, brings everything that is dark, and forces people to accept the darkness. If it's just revenge, Robert can transgender him and imprison him, just like when he was brought back, put on handcuffs and fetters, leaned over and drank the water in the basin, just like a trapped beast, a desperate trapped beast. However, Robert has to take care of the transgender person, and he has to be shaped like his beloved dead wife. This determines that Robert's future path is to love him and trust him. At the moment of the sex reassignment surgery, Robert had already made such a decision. He had already thought out a whole set of plans and made sufficient psychological preparations. Vincent was forced to accept his body, appearance, and voice, and greeted the surging psychological flood, wave after wave, and never stopped slapping the wound.
Robert gave him his gender and gave him a name, Vera. Poor Vincent, can he have more low self-esteem? He is not an unconscious patient or a newborn baby. He is a 27-year-old man with a strong sense of self. His pride was gone, facing the cosmetics Robert gave him, he was like a fish whose lips had been pierced by a hook.
Although Vera was so desperate, she didn't really want to die. As Robert said: "If you wanted to commit suicide, you would have cut your neck." There is still a glimmer of hope in Vera, weak but firm. He feels that as long as he lives, he has a chance to escape. After being raped by Sika, Vera's inner flood rose to the highest, overwhelming his only self-esteem. Until then, he did not give up hope. When Robert pointed a gun at Vera, Vera shook her head, still unwilling to end this. Life filled with absurd shame. The three levels of revenge in my heart are: third-class revenge gives people despair, second-class revenge gives people hope, and first-class revenge gives people introspection. Although "The Skin of My Habitat" is second-class, it also performs to the extreme.
If you can't die, you have to find a way to escape. Yoga helps Vera find the peace and freedom in the cell. Because of escaping, there is no resistance, and the new identity is more and more able to penetrate into Vera's body, seeking tranquility, because of the panic of the pain, sitting calmly and watching the emotions, but removing the panic, but it has not changed Forced to accept the essence of reality. Escaping at this time is more like a kind of acceptance that has changed its form. Yoga can also be regarded as an accomplice of revenge and has no deep meaning.
Artificiality and shaping are not just Robert's career, but a large part of the pursuit of personality includes these two elements. Wrap the branches with iron wire, help shape a potted plant, and use Vincent's body as the basis to create another person in his mind. A sense of superiority similar to the creator and the satisfaction of dominating other creatures is like a flower in Robert's heart. Poisonous flowers bloom wildly. "What you do will swallow you like a cancer cell." Marilia once said to him. He thought he was enough to control everything he created, but in the end he overestimated himself and paid the price for his arrogant emotions.
The unconstrained nature needs sufficient evidence, and the extreme state needs a more reasonable origin. Robert is not crazy. He really just did everything under that emotion. He, such a person, can do everything and should do everything, which is unexpected and reasonable for Almodovar.
Next, let's talk about the director's performance technique and style.
He has a lot of patience and ability to grasp the camera, he will show a small movement unhurriedly, like Marilia is accustomed to melting a pill in the water, Robert very rigorously collect blood samples, for Vera calmly Treat the wound. He will tell you calmly and jokingly while the camera is slowly floating. Look, this is my heroine and my hero. Regardless of sadomasochism, violence, or how strong emotions, in his opinion, it seems to be a normal world affair, with a strong desire for exquisiteness, and it is not displayed in an explosive posture. It is even more shocking to say it as usual, because we can vaguely feel that this is no longer a movie, this is our life, and violence like a crossbow is lurking in our hearts.
When it comes to exquisiteness, he is good at exquisiteness. In addition to the overall layout, it is more often reflected in the details. The close-ups on the details are almost indifferent and mechanical, and this method is uniformly used in the role scheduling. Doing so is to implicitly portray the personality of the character, focus on the event, and then look at the character from the event itself. The event itself is not a pure event, but an event that incorporates the psychology and emotions of the character. This makes me feel that "The Skin of My Living" is a very modern film. It even has a sense of the future. In the past, there were many films that seemed to write plots but actually wrote characters, but the future creative trend may be that they seem to write characters. In fact, the characters are explained through events that are stronger than the characters. The description of the characters seems to be weakened, but in fact it is added to the connotation of the plot, leaving a wider space for the audience. We should not use some established and traditional film guidelines to look at this film. It is an existence that transcends these guidelines. Although it breaks the rules, it is not arbitrary, but has its commendable reasons in it.
Many movies will be dragged down by physical scenes. Regardless of the state of the text, the feelings presented are more or less deliberate, as if they came into being just to attract attention. "The Skin of My Living" does not, one is because these physical dramas are absolutely necessary here, and they are not imposed to achieve a certain purpose, and the other is related to the mechanized processing mentioned above, which makes the characters invisible. . The lack of human touch does not constitute a defect in this movie, and discarding it at the right time will mean more. The indifferent treatment is like a layer of frosted glass, which keeps the story and characters from being overwhelmed by "desire" and "emotions", making the characters visible, and it needs to be carefully studied.
This film can be said to continue Almodovar’s strong fascination with the body, but different from "Living Color and Fragrance", "I" is more restrained, and more wild under restraint. Except for the flash point of "Tiger" Sika, other people All of his emotions went wild under the seemingly calm waves. To describe it in literary and extreme terms, this is elegance.
People say that what is imperfect is perfect, and what is too perfect goes back to the ordinary. This is not the case for Almodovar. He pursues perfection to the utmost. If every shot and every action can be expressed, then they will say: He is indeed born for perfection. Perfect but not ordinary, because the master is well versed in the point and end of creation, and is well versed in the audience's judgment and patience. The static posture, the moving posture, the symmetry and proportion of the composition, all the pictures hide his full aesthetic complex. Robert and Marilia were killed by Vera one after another. One fell on the bed and the other fell on the ground. Viewed from directly above, the two corpses are facing each other, with their legs bent to the left, forming a symmetrical picture. In a line, exactly 45° to the horizontal line of the screen, and Vera, standing between the two of them, was at a loss, forced to calm down.
Almodovar's requirements for beauty are not only strict, but also have rules to follow. He does not seek perfection to the extreme in any shot, nor does he regard perfection as infinite. There is nothing wrong with perfection, but few people do it well, and few people understand how important timing and proportion are to perfection. Being cautious but not rigid, light and solid, this is my impression of "I".
Scenes of "cold threats" appear in the movies from time to time. I admire Almodovars like this most. They don't directly show violence and fear, because the most frightening thing is often not the time, but the lingering fears. Vera once gently asked Robert to "live together", which was the opposite of what he had always done. In just a few words, Robert went from suspicious to angry to run off, and when he opened the door, Vera said leisurely: "The key is here." Robert left, still lingering in his heart. Vincent raped Norma. In the eyes of a father, he saw young men and women in the garden having fun, motorcycles galloping away, and his daughter who fainted by the tree. He did not see Norma struggling under Vincent. This was Almodovar's kindness to a poor father, but Norma's screams after waking up made him have to think about how scared his daughter had been. , This is Almodovar's cruelty to a father. To be cruel to the characters, but also pity, cold, and love, I can vaguely see how the director is heartbroken and painstakingly tangled.
Regarding the ending, I am looking forward to a battle that will hurt both sides. When Vincent's mother learns the whereabouts of her son, she can only face a cold corpse. But in fact, it is not so intense. The plot seems to have embarked on an unexpected path. Vera kills Robert and Marilia and returns to the family. It seems that repeated enmity has succeeded, but after thinking about it, this ending is more cruel and sad than I expected. If Vera died, her mother ended in shock and despair. If Vera was alive, after her mother was shocked and desperate, there was still anxieties and sorrows forever. Every day will be spent in intensified pain. Although Vincent returned to him, he was transgendered and killed. More troubles awaited this mother, and the tragedy space was expanded.
Of course, there are many choices for the ending. No one has won. Everyone bears his own suffering and will endure it forever. This is Almodovar's choice.
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