December 21, 2006

Mysterious Skin (2004)

4/5

This movie is first and foremost incredibly gay, but that is just the necessary backdrop for an emotional journey into the lives of two tormented youths. The editing often faded from one boy's face/body to the other's to give the impression that they were somehow connected, if not the same. Yet they both react to the same situation in two vastly different ways, one with ignorance and the other with embrace. I may have slightly "ruined" the ending, but I don't think what happened was really a mystery; it's merely the end of a journey of self-discovery, which is really the heart of the film. And this journey is expressed vividly by amazing acting all around.

Being so exquisitely and flamboyantly gay, it limits its message to a very specialized audience. While the movie was effective, I wasn't quite sure what its point was with a lot of scenes. It seemed like there was a gratuitous amount of unnecessarily explicit sexual encounters for the sake of either making you disgusted or depressed at the depth of depravity in our society. Some characters, like some scenes, didn't really have points and were just there to change up the scenery. The editing was extremely artsy and made the movie feel pretentious, which took away from the feeling of the story being realistic and raw. Even so, I think it's an extremely well-made movie, but definitely not for everyone's palate.

IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0370986/