The Skin I Live In (Cannes 2011)

Given the weird and wild movies that hit Cannes every year it takes a lot to surprise audiences here, but Pedro Almodóvar has just about managed it. The Skin I Live In reunites the acclaimed director with old muse Antonio Banderas and revisits some of the ground they covered together in Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! just over two decades ago - and lots more besides. The director's billing of the film as "a horror story without screams or frights" is about right, but it doesn't begin to do justice to the madness that unfolds over a couple of twisted hours in the pair's company.

Hopping back and forth in time, the film follows cosmetic surgeon Robert (Banderas) as he copes with the fallout of a car accident which left his wife horrifically burned and scarred. To say much more would be to give the game away, but as the twists and turns build up you find yourself occasionally gasping in disbelief or instead stifling giggles - most of them surely intentional - in your fist. There are some pleasingly dry nods to the surgical torture porn of Saw and Hostel, but there's nothing graphic or unpleasantly gratuitous here.

As we get filled in on the backstory, the layers of ridiculousness build up in waves of melodramatic insanity. On the odd occasion where just showing you isn't enough, Almodóvar resorts to having his characters give their barmy dialogue without a smirk, and you have to salute the way that everyone plays it straight. Yes, it's absurd. Yes, it's very, very silly, but The Skin I Live In is also hell of a lot of fun.

> Cannes 2011: Our top ten festival picks
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