Bechdel Test Movie List

/bech·del test/ n.
1. It has to have at least two [named] women in it
2. Who talk to each other
3. About something besides a man

[[3]] The Skin I Live In (2011) [imdb]

This movie passed 3 of 3 tests. It was entered by Citrusse on 2011-08-17 21:45:35.

Reviews

Comments

Citrusse said:
There is a scene where Vera asks Marilia for thread and needles. Other scenes pass the test. However, the movie is highly misogynistic. Hated it.
Message posted on 2011-08-17 21:45:36
Ourobouros54 said:
SPOILER
It's debatable whether Vera is a 'woman', depending on how much you want to stretch the test. It all depends on whether you're going by character or actor.

I hated the film too BTW
Message posted on 2011-10-20 15:14:52
a2pongo said:
Totally passes. And I loved it. It is an awful subject and a horror film treated like mainstream - but utterly brilliant.
Message posted on 2011-11-21 22:16:56
Soap said:
How is this movie misogynistic at all?!

Message posted on 2012-02-18 10:32:31
Perfectly Idiomatic said:
This movie is in no way misogynistic! *SPOILER* Vicente has to actually become a woman to escape.
Also, there's an exchange between Christina and Vicente's mother (who admittedly isn't named) about the stop.
Message posted on 2012-03-14 14:05:28
Martin disagreed with the rating and said:
*SPOILER!!*
I would argue that Vera is not a female character. I'm all for transgender characters counting as female in regard to the test, but in those cases I think it depends on wheter the character actually sees herself as female or not. In this case Vera is a man who has against his will undergone a sexchange operation. As far as we know he still regards himself as male, and I think the ending scene also indicates this. Therefore I would say Vera/Vincent is a male character, not a female.
Message posted on 2012-05-20 22:41:17
Shan said:
SPOILERS BELOW:

There's only three conversations of any substance between two female characters that are other than the character played Elena Anaya and even then two of those are debatable.

The first was between the 2-3 minute mark where Marilia instructs one of the maids to put a tray in the dumbwaiter and she replies with the single word "yes".

The second is at the 52-53 minute mark where Vicente's co-worker Cristina has a discussion with a female customer about what clothes she is looking at buying and what she is looking for. However the customer is never named.

The final one is the very last minute of the film (within 1 hour 51 minutes and 1 hour 52 minutes) which is the closest thing that Cristina and Vicente's mother have to a conversation during the entire movie even though Cristina works for her. This is when she asks Cristina what's wrong and she asks her to come over to where she is. As this is implicitly about the character played by Elena Anaya, this might also be debatable even if this qualified as a conversation, which in itself is also debatable.

As for the character played by Elena Anaya (which we've seen called Vera) who is actually revealed during the film to be the same character played earlier in the chronology of the film by male actor Jan Cornet (and was then called Vicente).

So it does get complicated with the character we initially know of as Vera. There are more than one conversation has with Marilia about things that aren't in any way relative to men and for much of the film we don't know the history of the character and would be assuming that the character is female.

Later on, the character is presenting as female with what turns out to be their intention of manipulating their captors so they can escape. They do use the name Vicente when they return to their former workplace by necessity as that's the only name they would know them by.

However, even though the transition was forced against their will, we don't know what the character will do going forward as that's where the film ends.

Even though we obviously can't rule in that the character considers themselves female now precisely because of the forced nature of the change, we can't explicitly rule it out either given how long they had to live like that (at least 6 years) and what they'd have to go through in trying to reassert their former identity. It's always possible they don't want to go through that.

Since there's no way to tell either way, I'd say this is a pass based on what we were lead to believe during much of the film and even more importantly that we cannot rule out the character is female any more than we can rule them in but also acknowledge it's a more complex situation in terms of the character in relation to the test than at the very least almost all the other films in this database precisely because of this very ambiguity and lack (quite possibly deliberate) of a clear statement of how the character now defines themselves (female or male) one way or the other in the narrative by the end.
Message posted on 2015-12-14 01:10:38

> Add comment

> Add review


Back to the list.

Privacy policy