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July 11, 2005
Mysterious Skin 
As the most mainsteam and accessible Greg Araki movie to date, Mysterious Skin is still incredibly inaccessible and obtuse -- firmly rooted as a gay genre film, with little hope of mass appeal.
The direction and acting were absolutely incredible - and honestly fostered a caliber that was quite surprising coming from Araki. If one examines it as a genre film, the main flaw is the fetishing of Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character, which really detracts focust from the storyline. The other flaw existed in the moments of comic relief - odd lines about food and bears on sweaters - that I didn't think was that funny, but drew loud bursts of laughter from the bulk of theater goers in Chelsea.
In terms of mass appeal, its hard to make a movie that people will want to see, about two teenagers growing up and coming to terms with having been molested by a pedophile when they were 8. If any of the more uncomfortable elements were taken away, the film would be less serious/pertinent and more of an ABC/Hallmark channel movie.
It's a fine line, and I would imagine frustrating for the director -- make the movie that you want, or sacrifice it to make a movie that people will see.
Having seen many of Araki's previous efforts, I used to think that the similarities and common elements shared between them all existed because he was 'unoriginal' -- he kept on making the same movie, kept on harping on the same ideas, kept on putting a different take on the same story.
After Mysterious Skin, I think that Araki had been trying to make this movie all along -- the gratuitous violence, desensitized sex, gay themes and alien abductions are presented in a way that explains their interconnectedness. I don't know where they come from exactly, the gay experience or surviving pedophila, and perhaps -- if I could identify with either -- I might have understood the interconnectedness in a previous film, but Araki really elucidates that experience and mindset to the viewer with his latest film, as painful and disconcerting as it is.
I saw it with a filmmaker, who pondered afterwards whether or not a movie like this, or a director like Araki, could break free of the genre and make an accessible movie that isn't mired by their own experience or goals.
3/3
Posted by Jonathan at July 11, 2005 11:17 AM
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