Greg Araki
États-Unis 2004 99min English o.v.

Based on the acclaimed novel by Scott Heim, bad-boy filmmaker Gregg Araki has created a film of great sadness and healing. Rich, subtle and driven by its two main characters, Mysterious Skin is unlike anything Araki has produced to date. Geeky, UFO-obsessed Brian and the whoring, heartless Neil seem to be the two most disparate boys on the planet. For years, the shy Brian has fixated on five lost hours from when he was eight years old, convinced that he was abducted by aliens. Across town in a very different neighbourhood, Neil repeatedly cruises the local park for older, rough moustached men to fulfil an unsettling and dangerous need. Somehow, the two boys’ lives and their necessary healing are intrinsically woven together. As the threads of their individual pasts come apart, a new picture of their shared history begins to emerge. With unflinching performances from Joseph Gordon-Levitt (3rd Rock from the Sun) and Brady Corbet, Mysterious Skin balances a grotesque past with the strength of the two characters’ need for kinship to produce a film that is unlikely to leave anyone emotionally unaffected.

Shown on:

saturday, november 12, 3H00 PM parisien 6 - pgm66 (Mysterious Skin)