Mysterious Skin
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| Mysterious Skin | |
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 Mysterious Skin film poster |
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| Directed by | Gregg Araki |
| Produced by | Antidote Films |
| Written by | Scott Heim (novel), Gregg Araki |
| Starring | Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Brady Corbet, Michelle Trachtenberg |
| Music by | Harold Budd & Robin Guthrie |
| Distributed by | Strand Releasing |
| Release date(s) | 3 September 2004 (Venice Film Festival) |
| Running time | 99 min. |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
Mysterious Skin is California filmmaker Gregg Araki's eighth film. Debuting at the Venice Film Festival in 2004 (however it did not see a semi-wide release until 2005), it is based on the 1996 novel of the same name by Scott Heim, and concerns the effect of childhood sexual abuse on two boys from Hutchinson, Kansas. The film received extensive critical acclaim, even from critics who had formerly trashed director Gregg Araki's work.
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[edit] Synopsis
Two boys are molested by their Little League baseball coach and grow up with very different recollections of the experience. One of the boys, played as an older adolescent by Brady Corbet, blocks out the entire episode and becomes convinced he was abducted by aliens. The other boy, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt (in the present) and Chase Ellison (in flashbacks), feels he was specially chosen by the offender, whose "love" became the highlight of his young life. He subsequently becomes a teenage hustler, while the other boy feels asexual and is given to nosebleeds and fainting spells. Thus, one cannot remember; the other cannot forget. Both eventually find a kind of balance in the other's shared experience.
[edit] Awards
2006 Polished Apple Awards - Best Movie [1]
[edit] Controversy in Australia
The movie has been the subject of some controversy in Australia, where a national activist group called the Australian Family Association requested a review of its classification, seeking to have the film outlawed due to its depiction of child sexual abuse. Some have gone as far as saying that the movie could be used as an "instruction manual" for would-be child molesters. The six-member Classification Review Board voted four-to-two in favour of maintaining an R rating.
[edit] Trivia
To protect the young actors playing the parts of the abused children, scenes with the children were shot separately from other scenes. Araki has said, “Chase and George had separate scripts from the rest of the cast”. The scenes were then later edited to give the appearance of the abuse happening to the children.[1]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
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