Pedro Almodovar has a long history of making skewed “womens’” pictures, where sensuality and perversity are one and the same. Yet one major reason why so many of them are regarded as class instead of camp are the very serious musical contributions of fellow Spaniard Alberto Iglesias, whose intriguing, and refined melodic sensibilities for the likes of BAD EDUCATION, VOLVER and TALK TO HER create both an elegant, and psychologically penetrative elegance to fit Almodovar’s glossy imagery. Now with THE SKIN I LIVE IN (aka LA PIEL QUE HABITO), Iglesias takes Almodovar’s bent sensibility to a whole new level of beautifully spare seditiousness.
When listening to Iglesias’ chamber music approach that fills much of SKIN’s sterile mansion, you’d be hard-pressed to realize that this is Almodovar’s mad doctor salute to LES YEUX SANS VISAGE (aka EYES WITHOUT A FACE). But then, Antonio Banderas is certainly far more romantic than some psychopathic scientist, with the object of his surgery, and unhinged affection, holding her own secret that makes that earlier film’s masked burn victim seem like a piker in comparison. And while SKIN’s ensemble certainly delivers on the symphonic woman-in-jeopardy set-up, it’s precisely Almodovar and Iglesias’ classically restrained approach to the movie’s sci-fi / horror trappings that make the film, and soundtrack so interesting- and likely far nuttier than a more obvious would’ve been.
Iglesias’ stark violins, pianos, simmering percussion and moments of noir brass remain as tightly wound as his characters on the verge. But it’s the “mad science” techno-percussion, organs, guitars and raging rhythms for SKIN’s naughtier bits that are the score’s highlights- providing the kind of bizarre jolt you’d have from witnessing Bach suddenly break out into a murderous rave beat. These are the delightfully sick, and well-placed jokes in Iglesias’ otherwise elegantly cruel game of musical cat and mouse, one that’s mostly suffused in menacing sadness. Get your biopsy via Lakeshore, or in the original Spanish soundtrack language at Quartet Records.
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