Movie Details
| Title: | Mysterious Skin | |
| Director: | Gregg Araki | |
| Year: | 2004 | |
| Genre: | Drama | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 11.10.24 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (0)
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 11.10.24 | Internet | This Screening is part of event: DVRfest 2024 I'm starting Day 3 with a triple feature I'm calling Second Chances. These are movies I've heard are good but they're from directors I've more or less dismissed. I do have a few people where if I see their name in the credits I opt out. I don't watch enough movies nowadays to waste my time on stuff I know I'm not gonna like so these directors are all on that list for one reason or another. I recognize that's kind of harsh though and sometimes peoples' tastes change and my tastes change and it seems petty to hold to some grudge if they're making good movies now. First up is Gregg Araki. I attribute him being on my list for largely a misunderstanding. I rented a bunch of his movies as a teen because he was putting music and band members that I really liked at the time into his movies. I remember seeing parts of The Living End on cable and seeing that one of the characters wears a Ministry t-shirt, and Skinny Puppy make a cameo in The Doom Generation. So I rented these movies and watched them for the music and cameos and wound up exposed to Araki's world which I did not sign on for. It was my first exposure to queer cinema other than the time we watched half of Rocky Horror because my friend and I thought it was an actual horror movie. So the more Araki movies I watched the more I thought his movies were actually crap and they weren't saying anything but just trying to be shocking. I think I watched half of Splendor on cable as well because I thought Kathleen Robinson was hot but found that the throuple movie was largely frivolous and, like all his others, more style than substance. So I skipped out on his next one which got rave reviews and for 20 years I'm the only guy in the circle of friends who hasn't seen Mysterious Skin. Not anymore! Watched it. It was as good as everyone said. I'm most struck by the maturity that Araki handles the material. It's the most intense and authentic look at child abuse that I think I've seen. Very frank, brutal in its honesty. And unexpectedly restrained. It's very possible that I'd like his earlier movies more now that I'm older and seen lots more movies and can place them back in their 90s indie scene context, but this one is the work of a confident director. No need to be flashy with the camera, no over reliance on music-video editing. Perhaps the script was source material was strong enough that he knew he couldn't rely on his normal bag of tricks for this one. Whatever it was that made him make these choices for this film, it worked. I can't say it's a pleasant watch, but super affecting. Very good movie. So After this, I'm kind of curious to revisit more of Araki's work and see how I react to it. It looks like he's mostly doing TV these days so I guess it's good that he's working but this seems like the pinnacle of his film career. |
