- on mysterious skin -
I won't even try to pontificate about the history of films on pedophilia, heck I won't even try to disseminate the controversy that's been aroused by this film. But you should know that this movie is good stuff, and that it gives light on a subject that is under so much taboo in recent times. Watch it and you will be shocked, but at least it will be an informed shock.Mysterious Skin is the story of two kids' lives and how they were affected by certain incidents that happened in their young childhood. The ways with which they dealt with it in their adolescent lives is portrayed as two divergent tales that converge again in the end.
Now of course it's not as simplistic as I had put it here. Nor is it too convoluted to be confusing. Not much thinking as such is required but a whole lot of absorption is involved. It's in-your-face sort of themes but cinematically dealt with quite delicately. Not much is shown visually explicitly but the emotions that were felt permeates.
The cinematography wasn't enlightening, but it didn't need to be. The acting was superb but the dialogue seemed a bit contrived for the deliverance of the story.
Overall it was a greatly entertaining movie, with well-crafted storytelling and unfolding of events. It dealt with the theme of pedophilia so delicately yet at the same time so provocatively. It conjures a lot of empathy and I'm glad it didn't get banned.
Several links:
If you liked this movie you might also want to check out Twist. I watched it at
the Mardi Gras Film Festival and it was along the same lines as Mysterious Skin. The Oliver Twist story has been readapted in this film. Where the kids were orphans in an orphanage in the original, here the kids are hustlers in a superintendent's lodging. And where Oliver Twist was the focus of Dickens, here attention is on Dodge instead of Oliver. Deeply emotional and traumatic, this film is so subliminally and delicately disturbing that it did not need explicit visuals to shock.I give it a thumbs up for delivery, but it's one of those movies that you either love or hate. I liked it, Hector didn't :p
Notes and links:
Twist (2003) directed by Jacob Tierney
based on the novel Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
Notable performance by Nick Stahl as Dodge
posted by schteve @ 12:22 pm
2 Comments:
Steve. I saw the Mysterious Skin, as well, and I loved it. But that's beside the point. I have a bone. [I can be arrogant, people, but I hate it when people just comment on the positives] {This only concerns the bit about Mysterious Skin}
I love reading reviews. They're my favourite. I didn't like where you went with yours. Seemed like a pointless venture.
Reviews can be so much more! I know you, and I read your blog because I know you. I don't want to know about the film. Give me guts. Give me anecdotes. Give me narrative. Give me where you fit in Mysterious Skin.
I know, it doesn't sound like I want a review, but that's the review that I like. One that isn't just somebody sitting in front of a flickering screen. I want a review that is you in the screen.
The rest of your blog has brought me to this expectation.
Point taken.
First of all, I tried not to write a 'review' as such. Besides, I didn't just write about the positives did I? I said what I did like and did not like about it, which might not seem so deep but the movie didn't touch me that deeply so my comments stayed shallow.
I can understand how some might've been strongly stirred by this film. But I've said all I wanted to say about the film. And many many other reviews existed before me so I didn't feel like writing another review.
I am not gutful, and I shall not be gutful. I am not writing here to please any person, nor am I here to offend. (See my two-faced character?)
It is a documentation of my life and interests by way of a blog.
If you want anecdotes and how I fit in Mysterious Skin, I think you'll find this medium to be inappropriate for that cause.
You can be as gutful as you wish on yours ;)
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