Hey folks, Harry here... there are few people on this globe as magnificently attractive as Ant Timpson. He has a power over both sexes of all species of lifeforms on this and any other planet. It's that powerful carnal stare or the deep melodic embrace of his voice... Um, riiiiiiight, ok, I'll admit it, this one time at Sitges, Ant and I... Talked for hours about cool bizarre cinema that few have ever heard of. The real astonishing attraction that all have for THE ANT is his astonishing library of the hard to find and bizarre. Wanna screen ATTACK OF THE GIANT HORNY GORILLA - well, Ant's your man... and THE INCREDIBLE FILM FESTIVAL in New Zealand is his festival. So powerful is its call that currently - Quint, Kraken, Elfgirl and Ravvy have all flown there to ponder the magic of the bizarre treats he has to offer. HOPEFULLY - they'll write in - but given how much they hate film and discussing it, I don't expect that.... ahem.... Anyway, we got the Godfather to comment on IN MY SKIN which just sounds approriately Ant-like. Here ya go...
Hey Harry, Godfather here with some reports from Ant Timpson’s Incredible Film Fest. The Society for the Promotion of Community Standards have gotten up in arms about a couple of films and yet again managed to put an interim injunction on screening a film (last year it was Baise-Moi, Visitor Q and Bully – this year its Larry Clark’s Ken Park that has been pulled out). However, Gasper Noe’s Irreversible, (the cause-celebre of censorship issues in New Zealand) managed to be screened without interruption. I’ve only caught three films so far, and I’ll keep reviewing them as I see them. v I’ll hold off on mentioning Takeshi Miike’s Dead or Alive 2, since the references to Dead or Alive wont be apparent to me, until I see it this weekend. And since Irreversible has already received much press on this site, I’ll skip over that one for now. But for my two cents, Irreversible is a stomach churning, unbearable and repulsive masterpiece.
In My Skin
Directed by Marina de Van
Ever since I was a child, I’ve had an obsession with biting my nails. Slowly, over the course of my teenage years my parents tried everything to stop me from chewing them down to the cuticles. From band-aids to special nail polishes, I was subjected to every treatment known in modern medicine for this behaviour. Persistent as I was however, my obsession eventually broke my parents and they gave up. Little did they realize, that occasionally (only occasionally) I would bite down on the skin surrounding the nails, and chew it off.
Was it a foray into mild cannibalism? I certainly never saw it that way. Was it a self-destructive method of coping with stress? Occasionally – yes. I’ve never been able to explain why I did it, nor do I ever try anymore. It’s simply a part of who I am.
Marina de Van’s Esther has a similar obsession. Only hers involves slowly and surely cutting away pieces of her own flesh and gleefully devouring it. Her self-consumption and pseudo cannibalistic behaviour causes her to falter in her work environment and strains her relationship with the seemingly perfect man (Laurent Lucas as Vincent).
Beginning with a severe gash on her calf muscle while wandering outside in the dark, Esther inexplicably begins to obsess with her wound. Francis Bacon once wrote that the wound was exquisite, and perhaps that same thinking drives Esther to begin to open up her cuts and examine the flesh inside. Perhaps it is her all consuming need for efficiency at work that suffocates her, and her only release comes from the pain she feels. The explanation for her behaviour is not really an issue for De Van. More important is the slow burning candle, which eventually sees Esther holed up in a stuffy hotel room, documenting her wounds while slowly slicing her entire body.
Not since Catherine Denuvre’s Carole in Roman Polanski’s Repulsion has an actress demonstrated such incredibly magnetic screen presence while simultaneously driving the audience away from her. De Van avoids the pitfalls of an actress directing herself (there are no stoic Kevin Costner-esque self gratifying moments here). De Van’s Esther as an almost despicable and unimaginable monster, whose victim is her own body.
Indeed, the film is graphic, and on more than one occasion I found myself sinking slowly into my seat, hoping that the image on screen would cut (no pun intended) away. It’s hard to comprehend, but this movie induced more cringes in me than Gasper Noe’s Irreversible, which I saw earlier in the week. It would appear that the French are onto something with their depictions of on-screen bodily harm. Like Noe’s Irreversible, In My Skin more than aptly keeps the audience on its toes, by creating situations where violence can explode at any moment. However, comparing the infamous fire extinguisher to the head scene in Irreversible and the hotel sequence in In My Skin is a difficult preposition, since the former assaults the senses with ambitious camera work, graphic on screen depictions of violence and ear piercing sound, while the latter sends the nerve endings in your body into overdrive with the slow and continuous split screen which never fully reveals the extent to which Esther is destroying herself.
There is a hint of eroticism in the Esther’s self-consumption. Like the vampire feasting on blood, Esther devours herself slowly, salivating with each new wound. In one moment she seductively allows blood to drip onto her lips from her knee, while bent over backwards on the floor. Replace the bodily fluids and In My Skin would have the makings of art-house pornography (think Catherine Brelliat’s Romance or Nagasi Oshima’s In the Realm of the Senses).
Would I recommend this film to anyone? Absolutely not. Even those cinephiles who admire the work of artists who push the boundaries may not find any value in this film, since it probably will not be remembered. Things to herald however are the aforementioned hotel scene and an earlier dinner sequence, which continues for an incredible twenty minutes. Over the course of the meal, the film slowly focuses in on Esther’s desire to eat her own flesh rather than the steak on her plate. Ingeniously, her desire for flesh is induced (and somewhat satiated) by the red wine forced upon her by her hosts (who are also her new clients), making a comparable reference to the blood of Christ offered at many religious services.
For those with a taste for the macabre, In My Skin will provide an intriguing portrayal of a woman’s body obsession at its most destructive, without dictating reasons and solutions.
Will catch more this week
Godfather out.
