Mysterious Skin
October 23, 2005
- Dan Ramer,
DVDFile.com
Gregg Araki is an awful, awful filmmaker.
The
guy deserves a bit of a mention for spearheading a relatively notable
“agro queer” cinema with The Living End and
Totally F***ed Up – two movies that are altogether
identical that involve lovely boys having sex with each other and
peppering their eros with shameless murder and torture. All but
the most devoted queer cinema devotees will admit that sitting through
any of Araki’s films is a terrible horror that shouldn’t
be wished on anyone.
Yet this cinematic pain and
suffering is what makes Mysterious Skin such a frustrating
experience for Araki-haters like myself. It’s not a bad film by
any stretch.
I was primed to rip Mysterious
Skin to shreds. Pen in hand, I popped this picture in my DVD
player ready to demean it absolutely all over the place – after
all, Araki all but deserves that kind of treatment after
Nowhere and The Doom Generation. But as
Mysterious Skin’s story of two boys (Joseph Gordon-
Levitt and Brady Corbet) on very different life paths who come to
terms with the ramifications of their sexual abuse as youngsters
unfolds, it’s clear that while it’s by no means a flawless
picture, the movie has a fine share of merit.
Most
of that comes with Gordon-Levitt, who turns in a staggering
performance as a hustler caught up in the sexualized and almost
dehumanized lifestyle he’s created for himself. Gone are the
broad strokes of comedy he brought to the limp and uninterested
3rd Rock From the Sun. In Mysterious Skin, this doe-
eyed performer showcases the kind of wherewithal and presence that is
sorely lacking in other young actors. Brady Corbet also uncorks a bit
of intriguing anxiety and discomfort in his role as the asexual nerd
who tries to solve the mysteries surrounding his childhood blackouts.
He doesn’t deliver the kind of histrionic gymnastics that
Gordon-Levitt hits out of the park, but his relatively subdued
caricature still comes off well here.
The only really
negative standout in the film is Elizabeth Shue. She gets to play the
ever-drunk clueless mother – the kind of role that gets
actresses Oscar nominations when the material is portrayed correctly
– but Araki doesn’t give her any kind of arc or intriguing
meat to chew on with her role. She’s capable, but her character
has nowhere to go in the picture. And a bizarre and somewhat open-
ended subplot involving Mary Lynn Rajskub (Punch-Drunk Love)
also goes nowhere.
But I was taken completely off-
guard by the filmmaking in Mysterious Skin. As a movie about
child abuse, it definitely doesn’t address anything
specifically; the climax of the picture provides clarification but no
sort of statement or engaging symbolism. But in eschewing that kind of
plot structure in Mysterious Skin, Araki has crafted his
first honest-to-goodness movie.
Sure,
there’s a long way to go – the film doesn’t have the
overall heft or confidence it needs to really make good – but
for film viewers as stubborn as myself, to have an odious filmmaker
actually make good a handful of films is a feat in itself.
I didn’t know Araki had it in him.
The Video: How Does The Disc Look?
Given a nice 1.85:1 anamorphic
widescreen transfer, Mysterious Skin looks pretty darned
good. Black levels fluctuate a bit, but nothing is ever outrageously
notable, and color contrast is kept to a nice, tight clarity. Fine
detail quality is a bit amiss – partly because of the
film’s on-the-fly production value and also due to a bit a
haziness in the transfer – but all in all, this transfer is just
fine.
The Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?
While it’s nice that
Mysterious Skin has a DTS 5.1 track, its actual presence is
not too exceptional. Both the DTS track and Dolby Digital 5.1 mix are
exceptionally front-centric (with the exception of the film’s
musical soundtrack), and that stinks because there’s a lot of
intriguing design in the mix that could have been amplified if this
track had had a bit more room to it. As it stands, it’s not
terrible, but there could have been more.
Also included are
English subtitles and English Closed Captions.
Supplements: What Goodies Are There?
The big bonus here is the
screen-specific audio commentary with director Gregg
Araki and actors Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Brady Corbet. The banter is
simple at best – there really isn’t a lot of astute
investigation of the film’s relatively serious context –
but it comes across clearly that these guys had a blast putting this
thing together (and felt even better about it when it was a hit). Also
included in this edition is a book reading of Scott
Heim’s novel and the film’s theatrical
trailer.
Final Thoughts
There’s nothing on this Mysterious Skin
DVD that screams out for instant purchase; the transfer and mix are
both nice, but there’s a lack of really striking bonus features.
As a rental, it’s a really great experience. It ain’t the
best movie of the year, but it’s nevertheless a hell of a lot
better than it has any right to be. Recommended.
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