The Skin

Based on an autobiographical 1949 novel by Curzio Malaparte, filmmaker Liliana Cavani's 1981 film The Skin (La Pelle in Italian) is ostensibly a war drama that is set during the American liberation of Sicily from the Fascists, but it winds up really being more about the politics and economics of occupation. No military battle needs to be waged due to the German retreat, so the arriving Allies find themselves busy with public relations and local issues, on which they defer to Curzio Malaparte (Marcello Mastroianni), an aristocrat and former Fascist who has switched allegiance. Claudia Cardinale costars as Princess Consuelo, Malaparte's sexually autonomous companion (whose escapades involve various other partners), and Burt Lancaster is Gen. Mark Clark, the American commander struggling to play diplomat while staging the next leg of the Allied sweep through Italy. But the more interesting story here is about the civilians who are caught in the middle. Cavani takes viewers down the sordid streets, where the new occupiers naturally take advantage of displaced women whose only means of survival is prostitution, and into the heart of the Sicilian mafia as they negotiate a ransom for their kidnapped German POWs. Extras include audio commentary by film critics Wade Major and Andy Klein, and behind-the-scenes featurettes. Finding both the humor and the horror in the lives of people just trying to survive in difficult circumstances, The Skin offers an interesting Italian perspective on WWII. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)