Mysterious Skin

Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Brady Corbet, Michelle Trachtenberg, Elisabeth Shue
Directed by: Gregg Araki
Written by: Gregg Araki (Novel by Scott Heim)
Studio: Desperate Pictures

Perhaps Gregg Araki's most coherent and traditional story (in a narrative sense), Mysterious Skin is a story about paedophilia and how it scars its victims. This isn't a feel-gooder, folks. But it is fantastic and engaging and you should see it.


The principal characters are Brian and Neil - both were on the same little league baseball team in the very early 1980's and both were taken advantage of (sexually) by their coach. Before the abuse, both children couldn't have been more dissimilar.
Neil realized and embraced his homosexuality at a surprisingly young age, while Brian could barely talk to his baseball peers let alone a girl; Neil, ever the extrovert, never thought to conceal his emotions, while Brian knew of no other approach to those strange feelings percolating inside him. Both, though, did have neglectful fathers.

And it is this shared vulnerability that Coach undoubtedly preyed on. As a result of his lustful actions, these two children’s life trajectory was forever skewed. Rather than (and this is really just conjecture about a possible future for a fictional life, so take it with a pound of salt) Neil learning that he needs to contain some of his eruptions and let others emote and Brian to open up a little, the two instead take their tendencies to extremes. Neil becomes a gay gigolo, Brian totally cut off from the world outside his mother’s house and asexual.

Much of the film is just exploring how miserable they are, as well as the odd people they come across. For instance, Brian in trying to understand his strange recurring dreams (of being abducted by aliens, ultimately revealed as a cognitive allegory for the abuse episode), comes across a girl suffering from MS (I think, don’t quote me here). She, yearning for companionship and love, initiates sex with Brian, who of course stops the attempt and demands that she leave his room. And Neil, poor Neil, just catches everyone’s eye (boys and girls) but only concerns himself with satisfying those wounded older men deprived of a sexual revolution that want to use him in such a way that he (falsely) feels empowered.

One can look at the film and want, given the depressing subject matter of the film, to see it as a remediative arch – that is, the inciting incident is the (psychological) injury and the restorative event comprises the ending. It’s true, the audience is left seeing Brian crying, shaking, and bleeding from the nose in Neil’s arms - and Neil showing some empathy for once, all in the Coach’s old living room where the rapes occurred. But, in true Araki fashion, we’re not left with just visuals: a group of invasive Christmas Eve carolers sing Silent Night at the doorstep of the Coach’s old home and Neil leaves us with a somber and sobering monologue:

“And as we sat there listening to the carolers, I wanted to tell Brian it was over now and everything would be okay. But that was a lie. Plus, I couldn't speak anyway. I wish there was some way for us to go back and undo the past. But there wasn't. There was nothing we could do. So I just stayed silent and trying to, telepathically communicate how sorry I was about what had happened. And I thought of all the grief and sadness...and fucked up suffering in the world...and it made me want to escape. I wished with all my heart that we could just, leave this world behind. Rise like two angels in the night and magically...disappear.”

They’re fucked, like everyone else they’ve known, and coming to terms won’t change anything. Sure, they have each other now, but when there’s so much suffering and viciousness (often directed at the Self) all around, even with professional help, both these bastards will have to contend with ordinary, everyday mementos of their corruption indefinitely.


Writing: Writing has never been Araki's strongest point (not that he's a hack or anything), but here his penmanship really shines. Of course, it doesn't hurt that this is an adaptation, but nevertheless Araki makes the dialog his own (i.e. full of strange, colorful expressions) and paints a picture showing just how sexual abuse has come to affect every aspect of these two lives.

Direction: In his tried-and-true style, Araki gets so much information across (especially during the paedophilia scenes) without having to show the nitty-gritty. Araki is not concerned with displaying abjection, but making damn sure we just feel it. It's also those little touches, like having Neil's eyes pure blue as a youngster but slightly corrupted by specks of hazel in his young adult years, that remind us that directorial vision (born and guided by the script of course) and execution are indispensable in good filmmaking.

Acting: Despite not sharing a scene together until the very end, JGL and Brady Corbett fit their performances with such disparate nuance that we just know shits going to go down hard when they meet again. We get how Neil's self-medication/destruction encompasses every aspect of his existence and how Brian's total reclusiveness has deprived him of life.

Michelle Trachtenberg can't act for a gram though.


Editing: Interestingly enough, it's the scenes with MZ T that feel a little too long. hmmmmm.....

Sound: Araki is always very minimalistic and tight with sounds - no Schumacher-esque inserts anywhere. Very organic.

Soundtrack/Score: What can I say, Araki's movies (even the shittier ones at the beginning of his career) have excellent soundtracks. This one is no different.

Self-Awareness: I was half-expecting Araki to throw in something that references his other, more chaotic movies - but he decided not to. Which is apropos, given the gravid nature of the film's content.

Overall rating: **** 1/2

~Ian

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Funny Games (1997)

Starring: Ulrich Mühe, Susanne Lothar, Arno Frisch, Frank Giering
Directed by: Michael Haneke
Written by: Michael Haneke
Studio: Wega Film

Funny Games is an art(sy) film, no two tits about it. But it's also a horror film. Which is an awesome combination in my book. That being said, here is the usual disclaimer about such works: y'all might find dis hur movin' pick-ter two stooopafyin' for y'all ifa Larry the Cable Guy thinger's on yer Flix o' Net (unironically of course).

That aside, prima facie Funny Games is about a wealthy family (two parents, one son) who become the focus of a sadistic game orchestrated by two young adult men with nothing better to do. You can also view it as a precursor to torture porn movie (but by no means prototypical), since we get to see people suffer from psychological and bodily harm for more than half of the film. And, undeniably, you could at first walk away from this movie finding it confusingly implausible and nihilistic.

But that's not how to view the film, or not as I choose to in any case. This film, at its core, is an cinematic exploration (albeit atypical) of violent video games.

First, get out of your head that this film is about Georg, Anna and Georgie (the family) - if it is about them, then I ask, "Why don't we see any of them as they die? Just the aftermath or the act leading to, e.g. pushing a bound and gagged Anna into the pond?" No, this film isn't about the yuppies at all: it's about the character Paul, the handsome and confident psycho masterminding the deadly game.

That's not to say that Paul gets most of the screen time. Hell, I think he gets the least of any main character. Even so, Paul KNOWS what's going on when he's not around the family - he's that in control. In fact, Paul is beyond in total control of what occurs in the film (i.e. he masterminds the escapade and looks like he and his pitiful cohort Peter will finish the ENTIRE game before the authorities get word of it), he is also privy to the fact that he IS a character IN A FILM. Not only does he break the fourth wall by winking at the camera - a delicious play-on words since (from my understanding) a "wink" is a cue revealing to the audience that the characters are aware of their celluloidal nature - he at one point argues that they can't be done with this portion of the game (i.e. done with torturing Georg's family). His reasoning? Because the film has not yet reached the typical length of a feature film (the film hits the 90 minute mark exactly after he says this by the way).

All this so far points more to Funny Games as a metafictional treatment of film rather than that as well as a metaphor for gaming. What leads me to ultimately form this additional intrepretation is primarily due to two actions that Paul performs: one is his constant obsession with completing this portion of the game in time and, two, a weird sequence with a remote control.

Like in so many video games, the player must pay attention to a time deadline - think of a Starcraft mission or a bomb mission in a Tom Clancy game. The young men even give themselves an arbitrary deadline for 9 a.m. on the morning after they start fucking with the family to finish although we never find out if that particular time has any significance. Just an arbitrary restriction to create a sense of urgency - I feel like playing the 11th Hour now.

As for the action with the remote, Paul essentially uses it to REWIND the proceedings of one of the last scenes and reacts differently than he did originally, now anticipating a quick and deadly move of Anna. This whole turn back the clock and try again sequence, screams Max Payne or any other game that has goons or monsters or dildos around every corner. It's also important to note that Paul is the one to restart the scene since it is Peter that gets shot by Anna in a moment when the killers let their guard down: if Peter was the player, I imagine the film would be over then. Peter's just not in control enough to have such a responsibility, he's like the marine you need by your side in Halo when ambushing some Combat Forms because, shit, why should you do all the work?

It also goes without saying that this film has enough (implied) gory to appeal to the bloodlust we associate with video games. For instance, there's a scene where the camera focuses exclusively on the blood of the just murdered Georgie sprayed all over a television set (not to mention a racing match is being televised at the time, a gametype often found on console systems). Additionally, the killers, like in many first person shooters and adventure games, has a variety of weapons at their disposal for this portion of the game.

As a final point, I keep referring to the family's gruesome ordeal as a mere "portion" of Paul's game because at the end we learn that he intends to repeat the horror with another, well-to-do family living also on the lake. Like a level in Hexen or Quake 4 or Duke Nukem 2 (any video game really), what occurred in this film was only part of the experience, part of Paul's graphic entertainment.

Writing: Superb and scary.

Direction: Haneke's shots are often long and arduous, but purposeful in that we are forced to view each of the family members struggle with what's being done to them. The first time Paul breaks frame, we're confused; the last time, we anticipate it with a pit in our stomachs.

Acting: Everyone is great: seeing the family's plight evokes horror and empathy; seeing the killers infuses us with befuddlement and disgust.

Editing: Some of the scenes could have been a little shorter (the one with Georg struggling to get the phone to work in the kitchen comes to mind), but otherwise very finessed.

Sound: The audience is not spared any cries, screams, cracks and stabs.

Soundtrack/Score: A cacaphonous switch at the beginning between a classical symphony and a German hardcore song rightfully informs us that this ride will not be a light thriller.

Self-Awareness: Jarring at first, Haneke's use of a character ultimately aware of his existence in a movie reminds us of what kind of (global) culture prevades: one that gets entertainment out of witnessing the suffering of others.

A lot of critics panned this movie and it's americanized version. Well, I guess that means a lot of critics are fucking re-re's.

Overall rating: **** 1/2

~Ian

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Zardoz

Starring: Sean Connery; Charlotte Rampling

Writer; Director; Producer: John Boorman

Studio: John Boorman Productions

The UK's Channel 4 recently described Zardoz as John Boorman's, "finest film," and a, "wonderfully eccentric and visually exciting sci-fi quest," that, "deserves reappraizal." This might generate enough curiosity in this obscurity to actually generate a viewing. The curious amateur film buff might think that the director of Deliverance and Point Blank coupled with the star power of Connery must be able to pull something at least interesting together.

This hypothetical viewer would be correct, but let's be more specific than just interesting. There is one word that describes Zardoz: phallocentric, and it is a word that I rarely even utter for fear of seeming the overbearing feminist intellectual. Zardoz is a film that doesn't just have macho men with guns, subordinate women, and violent solutions; calling a film with only those qualifications phallocentric is the kind of overreaction on par with calling a single murder a genocide or two martinis a bender. Zardoz is a phallocentric film because it literally worships cock. Sean Connery is the messiah of the dong, and he enlightens everyone as only a huge prick can.

If you think I am taking this metaphor too far, you will hate this film. Once you get the past the prologue delivered by a floating head with a goatee draw on his chin in pen; it's a nonstop sausage fest. The first line of dialog is Zardoz declaring to his followers that, "The gun is good. The penis is evil," and Sean Connery's character Zed spends the rest of the film crusading against this. He sneaks into a sexless society run by an oppressive female intellectual named Consuela, and he immediately begins tearing the place and the people apart.

He is a sexual Prometheus that brings the fire of misogyny to a sterile and emotionless society; he actually awakens catatonics by fondling, kissing, and throwing them around (without consent of course). He struggles to show that erections, fondling, fucking, and good old man seed are instrumental to keeping the human condition vital and genuine; all of these things are not exaggerations. They are direct examples from the film; there is even a lecture about erections with Sean Connery as the subject. His character starts as a savage and ends as the sum total of human knowledge; this is his reward for murder, rape, a Burt Reynolds mustache, and too little shirt. It's almost a pulp sci-fi version of the Wife of Bath's Tale (30 Canary points if you got the reference without google).

Writing: It's fairly dated sci-fi writing throughout. Character constantly exchange dialogue that explains who, where, and why with little subtlety or panache; the sheer absurdity and spectacle of the film carry more weight than the verbal attempts to be deep.

Direction: The direction succeed in several very memorable scenes such as the introduction of Zed (that would be the whole, "The gun is good," scene), and when the film fails visually, it's never for a lack of trying. It sometimes just looks so damn outlandish when it's trying to be provocative.

Acting: Connery is sheer gold in this; he plays the most bizarre material of his career without a hint of irony. Some of the cast are definitely having fun with the material which makes Sir Sean the best straight man in the whole damn film. Some of the cast also seems to have been selected more for their willingness to undress on film rather than their acting ability, but Connery handily carries every scene he's in. He even carries the scenes he plays opposite a giant talking stone head. That is what I would call presence.

Sound: Good old fashioned, high quality big budget sound. Don't forget; this was a major financial undertaking. Good money was spent on Sean Connery running around in a red plastic diaper and pony tail.

Soundtrack/Score: It's fairly standard artsy sci-fi music and sound. They took some classical, orchestral, and the occasional buzzing future science sound in a failed attempt to be artsy rather than trashy sci-fi. Some of these sounds honestly seemed like direct samples form 2001: A Space Odyssesy.

Self-Awareness: Zardoz is genuine camp; it has no idea how ridiculous it is. John Boorman has gone on record saying that people who mock the film simply do not get it. There is an honest belief behind this work that it is an artistic undertaking exploring adult themes. The creators are completely unaware that they have made Burt Reynold's version of 2001. It wants to be thought provoking, but it keeps making its points with a swaggering machismo that makes all its rebuttals via the revolver, the sword, and the fist.

Rating: This film is a disaster; so I rate it a Class 4 Hurricane.

Yay or Nay?: Zardoz is a fascinating but hideous train wreck; it gets a very strong nay for the faint of heart. Only the most dedicated of rubber-neckers can gaze upon it without at least one stiff drink in their hand. This is your last warning.

-Pete