Movie Review: In My Skin
Thursday, July 31st, 2008I just watched a French movie called “In My Skin” and wow… I’m not sure just what I can say about this one. “In My Skin” is a disturbing movie, both in imagry and psychologically. It is a story of trying to connect to one’s self, and maintaining a semblance of control. When someone loses control over the world around them, that person may go to extreme measures to regain a feeling of control over something.
IMDB says:
A woman grows increasingly fascinated with her body after suffering a disfiguring accident.
The Playground says a bit more:
After drunkenly gashing her leg open at a party, Esther becomes obsessed with her body and it’s perceived imperfections. She begins to poke, prod, cut, gouge and mutilate her body on a journey to self discovery.
Its hard to say much more than that without really giving too much away. Even with all the cringing I did, I thoroughly enjoyed this film. It says a lot without really saying a whole lot. The acting is good, and imagry is great, and the raw feeling is powerful. Basically, what needs to be said is add it to your NetFlix queue now. Unless you can’t stomach blood and self inflicted wounds done really slowly and deliberately. Then you might want to pass.
The movie is about a group of young people who form up a rather incohesive team of thieves to try and take advantage of the wide spread looting and rioting after the elections finish in France. Having stollen an acceptable amount of cash, the group heads out to the “Frontier” to escape the law, only to end up in the clutches of an insane neo-Nazi family running a people eating butcher shop.
The movie was filled with some very gruesome and bloddy scenes, but was shot in an manner that was at times, quite often actually, rather artistic. It was simultaneously intriguing, visually appealing, grotesquely gory, and realistically brutal. We’ve all seen the movies where the fights look good, almost too good, leaving the viewer feeling like he’s just seen a good clean piece of choreography. But leave it to a non-American movie maker to put in scenes of a large man giving a hard right to a small woman’s jaw, followed by a flinchingly realistic kick to the head. Ouch!
Originally published in 1943, the book is about a happiness virus that spreads across New York City like a plague. The disease makes the afflicted lose their inhibitions, act like they perpetually have 2-3 drinks under their belt (without slurring or clumsiness, they’re sharper in fact), and extremely resistant to doing anything they don’t want to do.
BoingBoing has news of an artist who has come up with a great plan. Great for us… and possibly the death of the artist. Mouse has decided to create a steampunk wallpaper everyday for a year! Of course Mouse would appreciate it if you could help this project along by submitting ideas for new wallpapers. You can read a little more, and find a link to Mouse’s site (and the pretty wallpapers) at 