SummaryBased on the acclaimed novel by Scott Heim, Mysterious Skin explores the hearts and minds of two very different boys who come to find the key to their future happiness lies in the exorcism of their collective demons. [Tartan Films]
SummaryBased on the acclaimed novel by Scott Heim, Mysterious Skin explores the hearts and minds of two very different boys who come to find the key to their future happiness lies in the exorcism of their collective demons. [Tartan Films]
People can't face the truth. Araki didn't create the alien idea. It is 0% fictional. Maybe the most incredible story of the last 10 years. The movie is perfect on itself.
Mysterious Skin is gut wrenching story, tragedy with great acting from Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Brady Corbet. Mysterious Skin is a movie that stays with you, it's impossible to shake off.
Mysterious Skin isn't a picture about existential vacancy; it isn't even about anything so simplistic as the horrors of child abuse. It's more of a meditation on the necessity of making your way past, or through, any obstacle that prevents you from being a thinking, feeling person.
Had Araki chosen to illuminate, rather than exploit, the traumatic aftermath of child molestation, his wallow in the horrors of Mysterious Skin might have had a purpose. As it stands, his film is just another trashy look at America as the land of imbecilic perverts.
Sad, odd and viscerally beautiful film about the act itself and the aftermath of child molestation. A film about how profoundly such experience can affect the free will, the choices the victims make later in their life and ultimately the constitution of their personality. Is there a lesson to be learned here? With all the uncompromising depiction and dialogue all over the place, i really doubt that. All that you are left with is the wish that you yourself were able to change the past of these poor souls. Trust me, that implausible and irrational wish will linger on you for days just like some mysterious skin.
Shocking, simply shocking! Granted any intelligent viewer would have anticipated the denouement long before it was revealed, still through the masterful work of the director you are held spellbound! wow!
It's a story about a wound, and how even when you have repressed it, it's part of your life.
I'd heard Mysterious Skin was very strong film, and that it had received an NC-17 rating in the US.
I can't deny that it's a painful movie about the aftermath of child sexual abuse, but it didn't seem so extreme to me either.
I guess the trauma, and the extent of the trauma was a decisive component in how it could not be assimilated by younger audiences.
Quite an impressive work of a fairly young Joseph Gordon-Levitt
An excellent film, which manages to touch various important issues such as sexuality, child trauma, prostiution are treated with a delicacy that only the touch of Gregg Araki can give,but in the meantime it's a really punch in the guts.
Must watch.
Mysterious Skin is the story of two boys and an event one summer, that changed their lives forever. Both had different reactions to it and both had their whole lives consumed by it. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Neil, and does an outstanding job. Neil is a male prostitute, cold and heartless on the outside, but lonely and miserable on the inside. JGL does a great job of portraying both to the audience. Be warned thou, this is one graphic film, not for the faint of heart. There are a lot of raw scenes featuring Neil, in fact, I don't think I've ever seen someone get undressed as many times in one movie as JGL does in this one. As for the film, it starts out strong, then in the middle, it seems like your typical, weird, indie flick. Don't turn it off just yet, because it gets better and better, building up to one of the strongest endings I've seen in a long time. This isn't something that hasn't been done before, but a combination **** cast, top notch acting, and a brutally graphic depiction of events, makes it unique and something that you're going to want to see.