How Does The Skin of the Wolf End?

The Skin of the Wolf ends with Martinón alone in his mountain home after Adela leaves, having discovered she tried to poison him. The final scene shows him lying in bed with his rifle beside him as darkness settles, his door left open to the cold snowy night.

Adela’s Escape Attempt

Frustrated by her brutal existence with Martinón and pregnant with his child, Adela decides to poison him using herbs her father gave her before the marriage. For days, Martinón falls ill from the poisoned food, vomiting constantly while Adela watches with satisfaction. When he leaves to hunt, she seizes the opportunity to flee down the mountain.

Her escape fails tragically when she steps into one of Martinón’s wolf traps. The injury prevents her from running, and she collapses under fallen trees on the mountainside. Martinón tracks her footprints the next morning and carries her unconscious body back to his home.

The Miscarriage and Departure

While treating Adela’s frostbitten feet, Martinón witnesses her miscarriage. She loses the baby she had been carrying, adding another layer of loss to their already fractured relationship. Once Adela regains enough strength to walk, Martinón makes an unexpected decision.

He tells Adela she can return to her family once she fully recovers. When she asks why he’s letting her go, he simply replies that the days are growing shorter and she needs to leave early. This cryptic response reveals something has shifted in Martinón, though he expresses it in his typically minimal way.

Adela’s reaction mixes relief and remorse as she stands outside contemplating her departure. She eventually leaves the mountain, walking away from the life her father sold her into.

Martinón’s Solitude

After Adela’s departure, Martinón discovers the hidden canister of poisonous herbs in his home. The revelation that she tried to kill him prompts a rare display of emotion—he stands outside crying silently while staring into the distance.

The film closes on a haunting image. Martinón lies alone in his bed, gazing at the ceiling as darkness envelops the room. His rifle rests beside him, a constant companion in his isolated existence. The camera pulls back to reveal his front door standing wide open to the frigid mountain night, snow falling outside.

This open door carries symbolic weight. It could represent Martinón’s vulnerability, his inability to close himself off despite returning to solitude. Or perhaps it suggests he’s left himself exposed to whatever fate the wilderness brings, having finally understood the cost of his isolation.

What the Ending Reveals

Martinón’s character undergoes subtle transformation throughout the film, and the ending crystallizes this change. His decision to release Adela rather than force her to stay represents a departure from his earlier behavior with Pascuala, his first wife who died from illness.

By letting Adela go, Martinón acknowledges something about human connection that his younger, more brutish self couldn’t grasp. She tried to poison him, yet he nurses her back to health and gives her freedom. This act suggests he’s learned that possession isn’t the same as companionship.

The tears he sheds after discovering the poison represent perhaps the first genuine emotional expression we see from him. Not anger or violence, but sadness—an understanding that his way of life makes real human connection impossible.

Director’s Intentions

Samu Fuentes crafted this ending to avoid easy resolutions. There’s no redemption arc where Martinón becomes civilized, nor does he descend into complete savagery. Instead, he remains caught between his animal nature and his human longing for connection.

The film’s sparse dialogue and emphasis on silence make the ending’s visual elements crucial. The open door, the rifle, the darkness—these images speak to Martinón’s permanent state of being: neither fully human nor fully wild, but suspended between both worlds.

The ending of The Skin of the Wolf leaves Martinón in the same isolation where he began, but changed by his encounters with Pascuala and Adela. Both women brought life into his world and both relationships ended in loss. The open door suggests he remains accessible to change, even if that change means confronting the emptiness of his chosen solitude.