Mysterious Skin

dominic

Beast of Burden
Saw this over at Film Forum the other week -- west end of houston b/w sixth and seventh avenues

deals w/ the divergent trajectories of two young boys who were molested by their little league coach

the one becomes a sex fiend and hustler, the other very nerdy and socially inept

the kid who plays the hustler is the actor from "3rd rock from the sun" and he really does a fine job -- very charismatic

among the reasons that i rate the film:

(1) the hustler kid is portrayed as a very sexual being from even before his encounter w/ the softball coach, and indeed he's gay before the encounter, i.e., masturbates around age 7 or 8 while watching his mother make out with her boyfriend

(2) the softball coach is a beautiful, godlike creature -- perfect body, tanned, but also very childlike, i.e., he relates best to children -- this is not the fat, hairy, bearded monster that we expect a pedophile to look like -- no, he's an idealized version of masculine beauty -- and he is clearly infatuated with the kid who grows up to become the hustler, has a kind of love for him, makes him feel very special and seduces him with candy, videogames, and good times -- he's not the kind of figure you'd despise, which i think is a very good decison (i.e., pedophiles do serious harm to the objects of their desire, and yet they aren't monsters b/c surely their sexual desire is structured in the same way as everybody else's desire, i.e., the origins of their desire and what gets them off are just as arbitary and shrouded in mist as anybody else's, and their only choice is to either act upon their alien and unwanted desire or repress the desire qua affliction)

(3) although the nerdy kid suffers from repressed memory syndrome, something that has since the mid-1990s been shown to be in most cases fabricated memory syndrome, the conceit of the repressed memory is justified on literary grounds -- first, b/c he imagines for many years that he was abducted by aliens, and this effectively gets across the warping effect that such an encounter must have on a person, i.e., the estrangement from this earth and inability to have "normal" relationships (plus it's set in a small town in kansas, i.e., the very freaky heart of america where people sight ufo's, though the hustler kid moves to nyc); second, it fits w/ the temporal structure, i.e, the hustler kid keeps getting into increasingly dangerous sexual encounters, which pushes things forward, while the nerdy kid keeps trying to figure out the riddle of his past, i.e., why he's so disturbed, which pushes things backward, and then the film ends with the two kids together in the house where the softball coach used to live, and it's xmas, and carolers can be heard singing silent night, and yet we know that for them there will be no salvation from their fucked up condition

(4) and it's very good film making in terms of images and music, etc

only criticisms are that it's a tad too superior as regards middle america and the parents are presented as caricatures (though even this is justified in terms of keep some things simple in order to reveal the complexity of other things)

overall = highly recommended
 

borderpolice

Well-known member
interesting stuff, it is the glamour of neil's hustler lifestyle that drives much
of the film. two things i didn't quite get:

* was the guy in who's mouth neil launched two 'rockets' the nerdy brian?

* what was the role of brian's father? in the birthday present scene it seemed
that he was the (an) abuser, but the end makes that unlikely.
 

dominic

Beast of Burden
borderpolice said:
* was the guy in who's mouth neil launched two 'rockets' the nerdy brian?

i'm pretty certain the answer is yes == though i'm not sure what kind of meaning you'd read into the scene, other than neil's cold & reckless heart and brian's perpetual victim status == but a scene that nonetheless enhances the overall power of the movie = weird and absurd and somehow affecting/capturing the unconscious

and so having the two in the scene together is justified by reasons of economy and structure, i.e., you can capture in one scene what would otherwise require two scenes

borderpolice said:
what was the role of brian's father? in the birthday present scene it seemed
that he was the (an) abuser, but the end makes that unlikely.

i think brian's father is simply the cold and distant father == and is realistically portrayed here as the "scapegoat" in brian's own mind for his suffering, i.e., just as brian (unrealistically) represents his trauma as a case of being abducted by aliens, so too he must also blame someone for the generalized lack of understanding of his pain, and he blames his father accordingly == while it's his clueless mother who coddles/infantilizes him == both parents are portrayed as caricatures, and yet such caricature allows space for capturing the dysfunction in family relationships that the trauma of sex abuse sets in motion == brian's mother's response to his bloody nose and fear of playing softball (i.e., allowing him to quit the team w/ no questions asked and then coddling him forever thereafter) is no more adequate or helpful than his father's disdain for his apparent wimpiness

so brian's father and mother are both abusers of him -- not directly, but indirectly and unwittingly -- and yet it is only toward his father that brian directs anger and blame
 
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luka

Well-known member
the retarded kid weren['t brian, he was just the town retard. brian isn't mentally handiacapped hes just nerdy.

the ambiguity surrounding the role of brains father was defineietly a weakness and the film suffered from a lot of those lazy scripting things. i still liked it though, maybe mostly cos the rent boy kid is pretty and magnetic.
 

michael

Bring out the vacuum
Just heard the director on the news / talkback station here. The attorney general has requested the censors review the movie's rating, i.e. he's trying to get the thing banned before it starts screening.

Super.

Anyway, Araki sounded very sensible and down to earth, really. Very un-hysterical and not doing the righteous artist trip re: the possible ban. He just said something like "we have the same kind of extremist groups in America and it played there, so we're hopeful".

He was amazingly positive about his own film, kept going on about how beautiful it looks and how honest it is and so on. So not what I'm used to from creative types, who are normally very self-deprecating.
 

DJ PIMP

Well-known member
Re the parents, I don't know if they were oversimplified - the whole movie had a slightly dreamy quality to it, like viewing everything through the eyes of the kids. Kids/parents often lead quite seperate lives and only connect on superficial levels. Neil's Ma is really open with him, but she doesn't know what hes going through any more than Brian's Dad knows about his son.

Re salvation, I thought thats what the ending was all about! The kids can't erase the experiences but they can come to accept them. That was one of my favourite aspects of the film. The two guys both come to a deeper understanding/acceptance of what happened. Neil accepts the role he played and regrets hurting Brian/others, hes developed some empathy. Brian has shrugged off his fantasy and sees the experience for what it was. They are both dealing with what happened...

As far as the origins of pedophiles attraction goes - I think its weird to say that the origins of their desire are shrouded in mystery. If theres genetic/environmental causes for hetero or homo sexuality, then why not pedophilia? My understanding is that its often victims of abuse that become abusers themselves.

To describe the coach's actions toward Neil as "a kind of love" is also odd to me. Its a pretty broad definition of love that would encompass his manipulative behaviour, i.e. using Neil to help him seduce other children.

Anyhow, great movie. Reminded me of Thumbsucker a little, in that they're both sensitive coming of age stories set in the US... different stories but a similar feel?

Praise His Noodly Appendages for film festivals
 
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