After the excellent, albeit somewhat overlooked Broken Embraces, Pedro Almodovar has now finalized his cast, crew, and shooting schedule for his next project, The Skin I Live In. The two leads will be played by Antonio Banderas and Elena Anaya, with a variety of worthwhile supporting performers, including Jose Luis Gomez (Broken Embraces), joining them. In more promising news, Almodovar will be reunited with multiple longtime collaborators off-screen: composer Alberto Iglesias, cinematographer Jose Luis Alcaine, and editor Jose Salcedo, all of whom worked on Bad Education. [The Playlist]
Starting next week, the film will begin an 11-week shoot throughout Spain, with a 2011 release date almost written in stone. Almodovar‘s adapted screenplay is based on Thierry Jonquet‘s 2005 book Tarantula. Read a bit of the Amazon plot synopsis below to get an idea of just how controversial this material is:
Richard Lafargue is an eminent plastic surgeon haunted by dirty secrets. He has an operating theatre in the basement of his chateau and keeps his partner Eve imprisoned in her bedroom, a room he has equipped with an intercom and 300-watt speakers through which he bellows orders. Eve is only allowed out to be paraded at cocktail parties and on the last Sunday of each month, when the couple visit a young woman in a mental asylum. Following these outings, Lafargue humiliates Eve by forcing her to perform lewd sexual acts with strangers while he watches through a one-way mirror.
The report mentions that this synopsis comes nowhere near explaining the full depths of the novel, and considering that it is only 128 pages, I may end up reading the novel quite soon. The Skin I Live In is a bit different from Almodovar‘s recent work in that it seems to cover material that the Academy would rarely consider, and I don’t just mean the foreign language. Nevertheless, with the 10 Best Picture slots, it could make a run. To be honest, though, I am excited regardless of its awards potential.
Do you think this material blends well with Almodovar’s skills?
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