Mysterious Skin1

Toronto International Film Festival Program Guide
2004

Mysterious Skin
Gregg Araki
USA, 2004
English Colour/35mm
Production Company: Antidote Films/Desperate Pictures
Executive Producer: Wouter Barendrecht, Michael Werner
Producer: Mary Jane Skalski, Jeff Levy-Hinte, Gregg Araki
Screenplay: Gregg Araki, based on the novel by Scott Heim
Cinematographer: Steve Gainer
Editor: Gregg Araki
Production Designer: Devorah Herbert
Sound: Coleman Metts
Music: Harold Budd, Robin Guthrie
Principal Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Brady Corbet, Michelle Trachtenberg, Jeff Licon, Elisabeth Shue
Production Antidote Films

Based on the acclaimed novel by Scott Heim, Mysterious Skin follows two boys on the cusp of adulthood in a Kansas-like part of America: Brian (Brady Corbet), a shy introvert obsessed by his own possible UFO abduction, and Neil (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a cruel and icy beauty who sexualizes his every encounter. As each follows his own journey—Brian’s leads to a strange connection with a fellow abductee and a dismembered cow, Neil’s to the exciting and ultimately dangerous life of a New York City hustler—they seek to come to terms with the incident that has so shaken their current lives and that, to their surprise, unites them in desperate pain. Once they understand what has happened to them—and what has been hidden—the resulting emotional release is so powerful, I defy anyone not to feel rattled to their core.

Director Gregg Araki is best known for his confrontational, sexually predatory road movies like The Doom Generation and The Living End, films which got him labelled the “Bad Boy of the Queer New Wave.” It may be time for a re-evaluation. Though his films are frequently masked in self-conscious irony, Araki has always shown a softer, sentimental side in even his most raunchy work. Here, he is absolutely invested in his characters’ struggles. While he never shies away from the tough stuff—Neil’s rape at the hands of a sadistic john is certainly one of the most terrifying scenes to behold this year—he reserves his directorial energy for the film’s emotional crux: how two sexually debilitated young men begin the process of healing themselves.

Mysterious Skin also has a subtle and powerful political agenda. Its setting, the details of its characters’ lives and its every gesture speak to an authentic, broadly middle-class American experience. Ultimately, there is something so overwhelmingly and disturbingly ordinary about Brian and Neil, their choices and their lives, that the film shakes our confidence in the safety of the North American social environment to its very foundations.
—Noah Cowan