In his newest masterful melodrama, En la piel de mi mamá, Pedro Almodóvar continues in his signature colorful style to search for the raw emotional roots of his relationship with his mother. Just kidding! Love ya, Almo but here we get; or rather something quite literally gets in the skin of Lingaya, the mother of Tala and Bayani. We’re in the Japanese occupied Philippines at the end of World War II. Daddy, a wealthy merchant, leaves them all by themselves in their mansion in the jungle. Sure, he does this in order to try to get the Americans to protect his family against the Japanese invaders, but that doesn’t change the fact that they have to fend for themselves. Even worse: Lingaya is dangerously ill and bedridden. Determined to save her mommy, Tala heads off into the jungle looking for a solution… which she will find at the end of a trail of corpses crawling with crickets… A broadly smiling fairy offers her a box. She has to slide its contents into her mother’s throat at night to cure her. And miraculously, it works! In the morning she’s in perfect health. But she’s no longer their mother…
One thing is certain. When we’re back sunbathing and enjoying a glass of pastis in the South of France this summer, chills will run down our spines whenever we hear crickets chirping nearby. Thanks for that, Kenneth Dagatan! He has managed to intoxicate us with this macabre fairytale in the sweltering Filipino jungle. IN MY MOTHER’S SKIN is like the little sister of PAN’S LABYRINTH. But that little sister is called Wednesday, and her mind is far more twisted than that of her big sister…