KDD on Mysterious Skin
I’ve read everything in print that has crossed my path on Mysterious Skin these past couple of months. It’s been in Filmmaker, Filmcomment, and Artforum. It’s gotten a ton of press, all positive reviews. I’ve always been pretty disappointed by Gregg Araki’s films. I mean, I know he’s the total Queer Boy Punk of late 20th century art house cinema, and I know people like to think he’s doing something revolutionary and fresh and whatever. But his films have always struck me as over hyped Queer MTV. But what I read about Mysterious Skin sounded different. Sounded like it would be something totally worth seeing. Sounded like Araki had matured and finally figured out how to make his film vision work. I saw it today, and it did not disappoint. But let me say more.
Every single article I have read on Mysterious Skin (and I’ve read a lot) has emphasized the molestation angle of the film. The movie is about two boys who are molested by their little league coach. The articles that I've read for the most part have focused on how the film deals with “difficult subject matter,” on how Araki handles molestation differently than other films. They talk about the acting and the script (the film is an adaptation of a novel by Scott Heim), Araki’s career, the reception of the film, etc. Not one thing I read prepared me for what I was going to see today. None. What I expected was an arty American Realism queer buddy thing with some sex and punk rock in it. Sure it has an NC-17 rating, but doesn’t anything that involves blowjobs?
Let me interrupt here to talk again about how fate has come to play with me lately. I was going to see Mysterious Skin with Zoe Sunday night in Berkeley but then at the last minute decided not to and to stick with my original plan of seeing it with Susan in Tucson. I was meeting Susan at 3 p.m. today for the movie. Charlie called me a little after 2, and on a whim I asked him to join me and Susan for the movie, something I never do because my “movie dates” are my alone time away from family. But for some reason, I really pressed Charlie to join us, and he did. Which is a good thing because I ended up with my head buried in his chest for a good chunk of time late into the film and can't imagine being able to endure this movie without Charlie right there next to me. But more on that later.
What I was NOT expecting from Mysterious Skin was an extremely accurate and devastating portrayal of an adolescent whore. The main focus of the film is Neil, played brilliantly by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Little did I know that Neil, a gay boy, would be the most accurate portrayal I have ever witnessed of what I felt like growing up, felt like turning tricks as a teenager, and feel like often now when I’m wading through my stuff.
Neil manifests homosexual desire at age eight, subsequently is molested by his little league coach (who happens to be "his type") and eventually ends up turning tricks. What Araki and Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s acting create in this standard and seemingly contrived narrative is a reeling and complex picture of the issues at play in a sexualized child/whore/adult. In Neil, we see an innocence lurking just under the surface but never fully realized. We see his innocence in stark opposition to the total decadent sexualized corruption that he endures, explores, and makes himself subject to. We see simultaneously an embracing of the eroticized nature of his sexual acts with older men and his distancing removal from the scene. He is in constant conflict with what he wants, thinks he wants, needs, has to do, is.
The trick scenes are the most accurate realistically portrayed scenes I have ever witnessed in a film. Charlie said to me on the way home that he has never seen anything that so closely approximated the way that I’ve described my life as a whore.
The first trick scene threw my body into frozen mode. I gripped my fingers tightly. When I wasn’t clenching my fists, I was chewing on my fingers. With each new trick, my body tightened further and further. During one scene when Neil is rubbing the sarcoma-mapped back of a sick trick, my body actually convulsed. Not at the sight of the sick man, but with memories of doing things it didn’t want to do. During every scene when Neil is turning a trick, he moves back and forth between staring blankly into space, removing himself from the scene, and then diving into the erotic moment and getting off on the violation and dirt of it all. And that is what happens. Or at least what happened to me. There was repulsion. There was horror. There were more times than not when I removed myself from my body to endure things that I did not want to do. But there were also those moments when I actually got off on what I was doing. And that is a tension and conflict that is hard to deal with.
During the back rubbing scene, my tears started flowing. I felt them silently run down my cheeks, but then, like I did back then when I was turning tricks I didn’t want to turn, I shut off the tears, bottled them up, and removed myself from the scene, forcing myself to watch the movie with distance. I was as torn watching the movie as Neil is in living his life. The almost 43 year old KDD was loving the movie as a movie. As a piece of film it’s brilliant and amazing. It will be on my Top Ten and most likely Top Five list. But then I would find myself personally caught up in it and could not get objective distance. Back and forth. Back and forth. KDD Film Connoisseur. KDD Ex-Whore. KDD Film Connoisseur. KDD Ex-Whore.
Then I got to the scene that broke me. I don’t want to give away the movie or the scene, but let me just say that this scene was so viscerally real for me that I can’t even put into words what it made me feel. In fact, I couldn’t even tell you about the scene if I wanted to because as soon as it started to happen, my horror and pain were primal. I crawled up onto Charlie. I buried my head in his chest. I closed my eyes as tight as they would go. I covered my ears. I didn’t want, couldn’t hear, see, or know what was going on. I have not had that kind of reaction to a scene in a movie since I was a very small child, if even then. I don't think I have ever reacted in such visceral physical, emotional, and all-encompassing pain to anything ever. I mean, I could NOT watch this scene. I buried myself in Charlie and I cried in horror. It was like the scene was happening to me. It catapulted me to a place I’ve been before and a place, I swear on my life, I WILL NEVER GO AGAIN. I couldn’t stop crying. Let me just say that in watching that scene, you could understand why I have absolutely ZERO tolerance for even the slightest or most minute potential for male violence in my life. Why I cannot tolerate even the slightest raised voice.
When the scene was over, I peeled myself off of Charlie and tried to pull it together. I was terribly embarrassed. I can’t believe Susan saw me have this reaction. I can't believe I let someone besides Charlie see me so vulnerable. I sat up and drank some water. I spent the rest of the movie in a daze, tears pouring silently out of my eyes. In the final scene, Brian, the other molested boy lay on a sofa hugging a teddy bear. I so much wanted to bolt and go get my child and never let her out of my sight again. I stayed though. I rationalized myself out of my irrational thought. When the credits rolled, I got up and went to the bathroom. When I came out of the bathroom, I bolted to the car, telling Susan I had to go get my kid. She came up behind me and patted my back and said she was giving me love. It’s making me cry now thinking about it.
I called Susan when I got home to apologize for my seemingly anti-social behavior. She said she felt my body convulse and knew I was having that kind of response. I’m glad she’s such a good friend and that she GOT what I was going through.
I’m really drained now. But, despite my personal visceral reaction to this movie, I can tell you that it must be seen. Mysterious Skin is an amazing film and I thank Gregg Araki for making it.
I’m sorry if I haven’t said much about the movie. I will try to detach my personal reaction and hopefully be able to formulate a more filmic reaction about it later. I hope you go see it. I'd like you to know what I feel like.
Right now, though, I feel like having desert with my family. Mud Pie is on the menu tonight. That sounds like just what I need. Coffee ice cream with chocolate cookie crust.