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Pedro Almodóvar's film The Skin I Live In gives an interesting insight into the links between the vicissitudes of identity, some personality traits and
their relationship to loss and trauma, among a number of other themes. In this review I will focus on these particular aspects as they are interesting from a psychological and psychoanalytical point of view.
The story is told largely in reverse, starting from the present and introducing flashbacks which provide a link between the current situation and past events. It is only near the end that the plot becomes evident to the audience, like in a thriller. I will mention here the key plot points relevant to the themes of my review.
The wife of Dr Ledgard, a leading plastic surgeon, has been involved in a car crash which has left her horribly burned. Following the accident, Dr Ledgard tries to save his wife who eventually kills herself when she becomes aware of her terrible appearance. At the beginning of the film, we see Dr Ledgard involved in a piece of research to create a pain-resistant skin which could be used to give his wife a new skin and to repair the extensive damage she had suffered. He is warned by a colleague about the professional risks of conducting an unethical piece of research, but this does not deter him from pursuing it at all costs. Later on we discover that his daughter, who has had psychiatric problems and is taking a number of psychotropic medications, is raped at a party by a young man. Dr Ledgard is bent on revenge. He kidnaps and imprisons this young man who eventually ends up in Dr Ledgard's home, which is also his private clinic and laboratory. After a number of twists in the story, we discover that Dr Ledgard has changed the sex of this young man. He was in fact the beautiful woman portrayed as Dr Ledgard's patient at the beginning of the film. We learn from a comment made by the mother of Dr Ledgard that this woman's appearance is identical to that of his dead wife. Dr Ledgard and his moth