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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

New Gregg Araki film, 'Mysterious Skin'

Disco is My Class War

15:36 / 16.09.04

I was watching a movie show tonight live from the venice film fest and they reviewed the new film by Gregg Araki, of 'Nowhere', 'The Doom Generation', 'The Living End' and so on. He hasn't made a film in quite a while. Also, I hear it has Michelle Trachtenberg from Buffy in it. Don't remember what it's called -- "something Skin", maybe?

Has anyone seen it? It won't be released in Australia for months, if not years, but I used to LOVE Araki, and I'm interested to hear what people think. And can Trachtenberg act?

07:44 / 18.09.04

Trachtenburg did a very fine job on BUFFY, but her character, as I recall, got sidelined in the final season and lost on the shuffle of "wrapping things up with a bang."

10:15 / 18.09.04

It's an adaptation of a Scott Heim book also called "Mysterious Skin".

I read it a number of years ago (along with his other novel In Awe) and I remember them both with very high regard. My memory not being THAT good I can't remember the specifics of what actually happens but nevermind. A re-read is imminent.

Closest coparison would be a less perverted Dennis Cooper... which is a good thing if you ask me.

Any UK 'Lithers can see it at the BFI London Film Festival (I've already got tickets).

Other than that it also stars Joseph Gorden-Levitt (of Third Rock From The Sun and 10 Things I Hate About You fame) and that it's got the full support of Scott Heim, who is very VERY happy with Arakki's movie, thats all there is to know until it actually gets a proper release date.

16:12 / 21.09.04

I saw it last week at the Toronto Int. Film Festival - there's a write-up on the fest site that provides a fair bit of detail (perhaps too much, if you're anti-spoiler inclined).

Personally, I thought it was fantastic - difficult to watch in spots, but well worth the effort. It's not as abrasive or stylized as Araki's earlier work. He's maturing as a filmmaker and I, at least, think it works much better for him. Mysterious Skin is relatively accessible and audience-friendly, at least for Araki, but it retains his committment to underdog characters and damaged youth.

Trachtenberg is okay - she only hits the screech point once, and her role is small enough that you can enjoy her if she's to your taste, or easily ignore her if she's not.

Disco is My Class War

03:37 / 24.09.04

I know Trachtenberg was on Buffy, liked her on it a lot. My question was more about whether she can sustain a 'serious' performance: there were moments on Buffy when I found her acting a bit overdone. Although on Six Feet Under she's just... great. "It's about Me Period. Here Period. Now!..... um, it's coming out in two weeks?"

04:02 / 09.12.05

I grabbed this on DVD a couple of weeks ago and was pretty impressed. It's difficult subject matter, but it's handled really well, uncomfortable when it's supposed to be, and always interesting to watch. I particularly love the final moment of the film.

As for Trachtenberg, I always find it a little odd watching someone I know primarily as another character in another role. It's almost like watching one of your friends act, in that you're more aware of the artifice. However, I think she holds her own well, and I commend her for taking a role in such a challenging film. So, definitely check this out, it's worth seeing.

04:09 / 09.12.05

It's almost like watching one of your friends act, in that you're more aware of the artifice.

I had that with Patrick Stewart. After seven years of TNG I became familiar with his entire range and he's seemed to be sleepwalking ever since. Although I'd say that's more to do with their limitations as actors, as the phenomenon hasn't happened with other long-running telly peeps.

Disco is My Class War

11:45 / 09.12.05

I saw MS a couple of months ago and had totally forgotten about this thread. Well done Patrick for rescusing it from oblivion so I can post a review.

It's easily the best work Araki has ever done. It's his most visually complex and aesthetically pleasurable film: although I really loved Nowhere, Doom Generation, The Living End etc, they were always pretty light on production values, which in the 90's seemed acceptable cuz it was 'grunge'. This movie is simply beautiful. Excellent music, good acting, nice cinematography, nice editing. Actually, it was a real pleasure to sit in a movie threatre and watch the film progress: it had a very powerful rhythm.

I really loved the way that it refused to simplify young sexual experience. It had this quality, similar to writers like JT Leroy or Mary Gaitskill or Jane Delynn or Dennis Cooper, where the characters have completely traumatic experiences that fuck them up in every which way, and yet the pleasure of those experiences is honoured -- there's a paradoxical way in which those experiences might open a door to a weird kind of love (no matter how fucked up, how wrong, how awful), or semblance of love, and because it's the only love that's available, it means love for the victim.

13:21 / 09.12.05

I saw this a little while ago. Definitely hard to watch, infact we ended up skipping over alot of the earlier material because of its content.
I'm not sure if the pleasure of the experiences are honoured Neil's viewpoint is ultimately/consistently/harshly condemned. We're given two very disparate case studies in the effects of molestation and while from Neil's skewed perception he may honour the pleasure and indeed love his molester I think that given the audience's privileged point of view we can see that it's not an ode to fucked up love but a story that's meant to arouse alot of pathos/pain/discomfort in the spectator.
The film certainly recognises Neil's feelings as a willing participant but by the close of the film even he realises that they're just a trap he's been failing to escape from for all of his life.

13:59 / 09.12.05

Just a quick note to say that Mysterious Skin was one of my favourite films of the past year.

I absolutely loved "The Doom Generation" and "Nowhere", and have long been somewhat disappointed that the majority of critics and viewers seemed to miss the point and write them off as nasty, juvenile trash.

So to see Araki return with a more developed and conventionally "mature" film without compromising the themes and visual aesthetic that made his earlier stuff so exciting and unique is, well, a very good thing indeed.

It's a strange, beautiful, intelligent film and generally one not to miss.

My one complaint is that I would have prefered it if they'd taken the ambiguity of the abuse vs abduction scenario further and played on the unreliability-of-memory idea, rather than directly spelling out exactly what happened..... but that's probably just me and my weirdness-fixated ways.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

18:18 / 28.03.06

Finally got round to watching this last night... excellent. I think betty woo and Mister Disco have pretty much summed up my feelings on it, though. Absolutely beautiful.

20:37 / 28.03.06

I saw Doom Generation a few weeks ago and loved it. I could see why people dislike it, because of the odd dialogue and ultraviolence, but there's a lot of depth there. It was like a post apocalyptic take on a Kevin Smith or Richard Linklater film.

The ending, with all the strobe stuff, was one of the most intense sequences I've ever seen. Mysterious Skin is probably the better film, but it's not like Araki all of a sudden got good with that one.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

20:47 / 28.03.06

I also liked Doom Generation- I think that appealed to different parts of me (the gothy, nihilistic parts- as well as the parts that go "cool! Perry Farrell!!!") than Mysterious Skin (the compassionate, empathic parts) did, though.

21:09 / 28.03.06

There's a massively interesting interview with Araki here.

I just remember being perturbed by Doom Generation, then liking it and then becoming perturbed again. Less about the content than the shambolic narrative, distorted construction and that ending, I think. Nightmare logic always has that effect on me, though, and furrowed brows abound for alot of people after Araki's films, I'm sure.

There's a little bit in the above interview where it's mentioned that the quik-e-mart scene was based on part of the Odessa Steps sequence in Potemkin (which makes terrible sense now I think of it). There's further homage to/pastiche of other films/film-makers in Doom Generation, vibes of Lynch definitely* and maybe even Easy Rider.

*Although they were possibly just contemporaries. Araki cites Godard as an influence which is interesting to say the least. Who would Lynch cite, I wonder? Were their developments although overlapping sometimes in style, completely disimilar? [/thoughtlet]

03:30 / 03.04.06

Great interview. On a side note, I was wondering if anyone knows what the proper aspect ratio for The Doom Generation is? The region 1 DVD is in fullscreen, and if the film is actually widescreen, does anyone know if there's any widescreen DVDs out elsewhere in the world?