The Reflecting Skin (film)

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The Reflecting Skin

Directed by	Philip Ridley
Produced by	Dominic Anciano
Written by	Philip Ridley
Starring	Viggo Mortensen Lindsay Duncan
Music by	Nick Bicât
Cinematography	Dick Pope
Distributed by	BBC Miramax Films
Release date(s)	9 September 1990
Running time	95 min.
Country	UK
Language	English
IMDb profile

The Reflecting Skin is a surreal 1990 film about a young child growing up in rural Idaho in the 1950s. The movie is directed by Philip Ridley, and features Viggo Mortensen and Lindsay Duncan.

The film weaves elements of the grotesque, vampirism, child sexual abuse, and religious zealotry throughout its narrative about the perceptions and fantasies of an impressionable pre-adolescent boy and his friends.

[edit] Awards

At the 1990 Locarno International Film Festival, Ridley won three awards, C.I.C.A.E. Award, the FIPRESCI Prize, and Silver Leopard. At the 1990 "Sitges" Catalonian International Film Festival, Lindsay Duncan won the Best Actress award and Dick Pope the award for Best Cinematography. At the 1990 Stockholm Film Festival, Ridley received the FIPRESCI Prize. It also won the 1995 Mahaffey Award for "Worst Movie Ever Made," narrowly edging out the Dana Carvey film, Master of Disguise.

The film creates an eerie tone by placing the vast majority of its action outdoors around the delapitated farms and in the cornfields of Idaho (actually locations in Canada) shot in idyllic sunlight which belies the dark secrets and decadence of the characters and plot. The story is told in an objective, somewhat absurdist style, which recalls David Lynch by way of Days of Heaven.