Antonio Banderas will seek brutal revenge in director Pedro Almodovar’s The Skin I Live In

For me personally, there are few filmmakers working in the world today that are better than Pedro Almodovar. On just a visual level, the man is a master of colors and light. And thematically, the Spanish-born director deftly handles emotionally profound and honest subjects with a keen sense of grace and style.

So when I read that Almodovar has brought on Antonio Banderas – both of whom haven’t worked together since 1990’s TIE ME UP, TIE ME DOWN – to make a film about “a plastic surgeon’s revenge on the man who raped his daughter”, my eyes lit up.

Titled LA PIEL QUE HABITO (a.k.a. THE SKIN I LIVE IN), the film, according to Spanish publication El Pais (via THR), “will be a terror film, without screams or scares. It’s difficult to define and although it comes close to the terror genre — something that appeals to me that I’ve never done — I won’t respect any of its rules. It’s the harshest film I’ve ever written and Banderas’ character is brutal.”

As mentioned above, this marks the first time these two have collaborated together on a film in 20 years, and is expected to be very highly anticipated in the world of Spanish cinema. Almodovar talks a little about his reunion with Banderas:

“He’s exactly the same as when he left. From the minute he walked in, it was as if we had just finished
‘Tie Me Up’ the night before. I could have continued with a puerile guy with an overpowering power of seduction,” referring to Banderas’ role 20 years earlier. “But this guy (in “Skin”) is a real psychopath and Antonio, at 50, is perfect for this exercise is something so different from anything I’ve done until now.”

Details beyond all of this are scant, but according to THR, THE SKIN I LIVE IN is currently in active pre-production.