Guilt is too heavy of a burden to bear, whereas revenge is a poetic way toward self-destruction, leading a person toward obsessive madness in search for their so-called peaceful satisfaction. If you blend all those things into one, Pedro Almodóvar’s The Skin I Live In and Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face (Les Yeux sans visage) are what you will end up with. Franju’s Eyes Without a Face captures his character’s anguish in a quieter mood than your usual horror; more internal, more penetrating. It’s a horror in homeopathic doses. On the other hand, Almodóvar, who was heavily influenced by Franju’s Eyes Without a Face, with The Skin I Live In, borrows from the classic horror tale while holding a vision which goes much deeper into exploring themes of pain, obsession, identity, insanity, revenge, and sexual violence.
Franju explores what a madman’s love can do when soaked in unmistakably aching guilt. He crafts a horror story seethed from the pain of lost identity, carved in emotions that stay in mind without ever being forgotten. In Eyes Without a Face, Franju takes the story of Dr. Frankenstein and his obsession with the resurrection of the dead, but focuses more on its tragic elements and poetic imagery. Dr. Génessier (Pierre Brasseur) is a physician turned mad scientist, enthralled in the recreation of the past and eradication of his misdeeds. He is overwhelmed with guilt and sadness as he cannot undo what has been done to his daughter Christiane (Édith Scob), who covers her face with a mask, hiding deformities caused by her father’s reckless driving.
Watching Christiane’s unbearable plight, Dr. Génessier sets out to make things right, promising to restore her face through skin grafting, no matter the cost. Every action taken by Dr. Genessier is outright cruel and sadistic. It is evident from his expressions that he knows what a cold-hearted person he has become, yet he swallows all that down in his overflowing love for Christiane. Being a surgeon helps his mind and heart stay in a catatonic state. He doesn’t look away in disgust; he remains impassive while carrying out his deeds. His calmness through all this only accentuates the spine-chilling horror villain we all search for.
His loyal assistant Louise (Alida Valli), helps him continue his heartless act by secretly kidnapping several young women as donors to experiment on. She is indebted to Dr. Génessier because he repaired her damaged face, leaving only a small scar on the throat that she covers with a pearl choker. Louise’s appearance is not threatening, which helps her pursue her victims more easily. She is as unaffected by her horrific actions as the doctor is. She doesn’t feel any pity toward her victims, as her only focus remains on Christiane’s well being. This is where the real horror lies, that jolts through the spines of the viewers, when the characters hide their true hideous nature and go about their daily harmonious lives without ever worrying about their actions (quite similar to a serial killer).
“The dead should keep quiet. Then let me be dead for good.”
Christiane cries those words to Louise as she can’t stand it anymore due to the pain she endures, the drained physicality of her body attuned to her lifeless existence, or the fear of feeling the furrows and crevices in her skin. Her faith in her father succeeding to bring back her face has diminished. She is terrified to look at herself with the mask on, as it represents every heartless and cruel act done by her father for her sake. Her eyes represent a sense of hopefulness, the beauty inhibited within her and the only resource available to express her anguish. Christiane floats around the hollow, lifeless mansion like a ghost, adding to her internal horrors as the poetic imagery is embedded in your mind, never to be forgotten. The stray dogs kept in the cages by her father for his experiments are the only creatures that are not repulsed by Christiane’s true face.
In the final act of the movie, both Dr. Génessier and Louise get their meted endings by the very beings they have tormented. Christiane finally conjures up the strength and walks into the woods outside the mansion with the freed ivory doves cleansing her. The final frame sets in a grimly poetic ending that will stay in our minds forever.
“We intervene in everything around us. Meat, clothes, vegetables, fruit, everything! Why not use scientific advances to improve our species? You know how many diseases we could cure with transgenesis? Or the genetic malformations that could be avoided?”
There are 50 years between Eyes without a Face and The Skin I Live In. In those 50 years, medicine has progressed drastically, with improvements and experimentations in every field, including plastic surgery. Yet, a few things are still forbidden, like transgenesis. To that boundary, plastic surgeon Robert Ledgard (Antonio Banderas) offers the above-quoted debate with his senior colleague, who warns him about further experimentation and forbids him to continue on that path. Little does he know that Ledgard has already successfully completed his experiment with transgenesis, using an artificial skin that can withstand any kind of damage on a young woman named Vera (Elena Anaya), who he keeps in captivity with the help of one of his servants, Marilia (Marisa Paredes) at his secluded estate.
Almodóvar extends the themes from Franju’s Eyes Without A Face to a much more disturbing place. He tweaks Dr. Génessier’s character to Robert Ledgard, by changing his aching guilt into the form of revenge, sorrow into obsession, and anguish into insanity. Ledgard, while presenting the same characteristics as Dr. Génessier, is more secluded with his emotions. In his pursuit of revenge, we see him driven by the tortures of his past, fueling him in anger and pain to the point where he does something that not only changes him, but also the person on whom he has orchestrated the path. We also see how far he is willing to go to cause suffering to his victim, by displaying patience and calm demeanor that let his visions transform into a new physical shape.
Almodóvar keeps many secrets that are slowly peeled away with time, allowing the audience to gain insight into the characters, their histories, and what drives them. Almodóvar brings in his trademark melodrama in relevance to Ledgard’s maternal history, while keeping the essence of the tragedy unfolding throughout. When the movie goes into flashbacks, we create a perception of the characters, hoping for the best possible outcome. But the tragedy piles on into torture that ultimately shapes our perception towards the characters, though we are unable to presume their outcomes.
Like Eyes Without A Face, The Skin I Live In doesn’t rely on traditional scare tactics to keep you terrified. Rather, it gets into your subconscious, with the disturbing sight of Ledgard and his unsettling demeanor. When we first meet him, we are in steps of falling in love with him until his intentions unfold in front of us, and then we just want to run far away.
The classical score used by both films elevates tension, Franju uses the score in a jaunty carnivalesque waltz (featured while Louise picks up young women for Dr. Génessier) and a lighter, sadder piece for Christiane. While Almodóvar uses his score carefully – using a sinister build up in the presence of Ledgard and lighter notes of the violin when in presence of Vera.
Almodóvar uses the crisis of identity through both Ledgard and Vera, who is shown using opium to numb her memories of the past while trying to fit into her new identity. While Ledgard’s identity crisis makes him fall in love with his creation. Vera’s isolation inside the room is not nearly as hollow as Christiane’s was; rather it is more of a cage for Ledgard to use Vera as his guinea pig. That is, until he finishes his experiment on Vera, which lets Vera carve her path to being freed from captivity and the need to play along with Robert’s whims. Almodóvar never takes a side, nor gives us a redeeming figure. He lets us decide by showing everyone with fatal flaws, preventing us from having any kind of sympathy.
Playing with similar themes of guilt and identity with elements of horror thrown in the mix. The influence of Eyes without a Face is undeniable in The Skin I Live In. The key difference lies with decisions taken by both Franju and Almodóvar with their lead characters. Almodóvar’s path for Ledgard takes its form through revenge, pushing the line in every way possible, and leaving the audience in absolute shock with scarring and unravelling results. While Franju leads Dr. Génessier deep into his guilt from misdeeds which took a toll on his daughter leading the story to be both grisly and beautiful at the same time, making Eyes without a Face a timeless classic which took the horror genre toward a poetic art form.
