Audiences who believed LA MUJER DE MI HERMANO to be the first to tackle marital infidelity where the husband has an affair with -- gasp! -- another man may not have heard of this little movie that splashed itself unto European movie theatres (and ultimately, ours in several Gay and Lesbian film festivals) in 2000. SEGUNDA PIEL (SECOND SKIN) delves into the theme of self-hatred through the disguise of infidelity, with the catch that even by the time of its release this sort of story had been explored years and years ago. If you change the sex of Diego (played by that explosive mass of dangerous masculinity called Javier Bardem) and make him a she, you have the basic of every Hollywood soaper that made it unto movie screens from day one. As a matter of fact, this movie plays with a sub-genre of gay fiction, gay romance, in which elements prevalent in heterosexual romance drive a plot. While many may chuckle at the thought, I seem to find value in it -- I would rather see this type of by-the-number, Lifetime-oriented melodrama ten times over anything that attempts to bring forth rituals of quasi-masculinity described in much of the literature of Jean Genet or Fassbinder's 1982 movie QUERELLE. For any story to work there has to be some form of an emotional link to it, even if it is hokey and clichéd. It's why a little movie called GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN works for me (despite it been filmed on a micro-budget), and why the works of William S. Burroughs, as extreme in their depiction of entire civilizations of men and the violence of their subcultures, leave me cold. SECOND SKIN is far from a great movie, or even a good one -- some subplots, such as Elena's sleeping with her co-worker -- lead nowhere, and it's true that there are times when Alberto made me want to break that fourth wall and smack him a good one for playing with the devoted Diego and Elena (and pretty much everyone else in the movie). However, it has the presence of four of Spain's best actors -- Javier Bardem, Jordi Molla (as Alberto), Ariadna Gil (as Elena), and Cecilia Roth (as Diego's friend and co-worker Eva), and the irony of showing scenes of homosexual sex so passionate they nearly stop the movie in its tracks as opposed to the more tame heterosexual scenes.
Review of Second Skin
