Gothic Fiction Elements in Pedro Almodóvar’s The Skin I Live In (2011)

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to explore the elements of Gothic fiction in the critically
acclaimed Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar’s 2011 film The Skin I Live In. The
film is often viewed as a distinctly modern piece of art in that it dwells on contemporary
issues referring to complex ethical and moral dilemmas connected to genetic
engineering and the disintegration of an individual’s identity. However, despite the
undeniable presence of the said issues, the idea is to show that the film’s structure
is in fact solidly built on a much older Gothic fiction matrix featuring many of its
well-established, easily discernible motifs and conventions. Starting with the classic
Gothic topos – a helpless heroine set in an eerie, claustrophobic architecture, and
a grotesque atmosphere evoking a feeling of imminent doom – the paper will consider
the film’s portrayal of concepts such as death, doubles, and dreams in order to
show that the work of the Spanish director bears many similarities to the canonical
Anglophone genre. Inevitably, the analysis will also examine the distinct parallel
between Mary Shelley’s seminal Gothic fiction text, Frankenstein, and the contemporary
counterparts of its mad scientist and his Creation embodied by Almodóvar’s
Dr Robert Ledgard and his Vera.