Looking at the career path of director Gregg Araki I can only be reminded of the very personal path of my own sexuality. That may sound a bit forward, but follow me for a second. In 1992, a 15 year old Keith Jerome Garcia bought a ticket at the Mayan Theatre for some random art film in an effort to then sneak into The Living End. I was attracted to the poster for the film that showed two (hot) men, faces intimately close, fighting over a gun. I was just now learning to decipher what the word 'homoeroticism' meant and darned if the ad campaign didn't promise a film ripe with that meaning. Araki's amateur style and visual abilty made a huge impression on me. I was just beginning to untangle, what seemed to me, a long thread of sexual identity and direction and, after the film, I felt like I had at least found one end to start pulling on. Araki presented me with two strong gay men, neither one the stereotype I was used to seeing up to that point. These men were not defined by their sexuality, in fact, their sexuality was the emotional torrent that caused so much trouble for them in the first place. Suddenly my eyes were open.I followed Araki's films from that point on and seemed to grow up twisted arm in arm with him. I came out at school in 1993 weeks after viewing Totally Fucked Up, following the reaction a gay character who kills himself, after living in fear of his gay secret, leaves on his friends. In 1995 I entered college with The Doom Generation and its nihilistic, sexual curiousity made me view life away from home with both excitement and suspicion. I had my first set of 'anonymous' sexual encounters during that period but knew that I wanted something more than their empty thrills. 1997's Nowhere met me trying to make adult decisions when all I wanted was a boy who would sleepover and make out with me. James Duval's exploding alien-cockroach-boyfriend at that film's end said it all: Grow up. Preparing to move to L.A.as a 'grown-up' in 2000 (and reeling from a boy who broke my heart only the way an adult could), I caught Araki's Splendor and was caught off guard by him again. His 'Teenage Apocalypse' trilogy behind him, he had presented a shiny box wrapped in all of his usual touches: over the top set design, pop culture in a blender, young, attractive individuals swimming upstream in a chaotic world. Most people ignored the box, tired of Araki's same old tricks and empty flash, but when I opened it I found a slightly focused, lightly muted, adult screwball comedy, with something that had been long absent from the Araki ouevre: Hope.
In the six years since his last film and his new one, Mysterious Skin, it appears that Mr. Araki and myself have grown up quite a bit. The film is based on a novel, by Scott Heim, which I had read in high school but perhaps like the filmmaker, needed a take a few years afterwards to truly experience. In the film we meet two boys, Brian Lackey (Brady Corbet) and Neil McCormick (Joseph Gordon Levitt, here showing range light years beyond his sitcom training) who at the age of eight shared an experience that sends them on two very different paths. Brian is plagued by nightmares that remind him of that summer when five hours disappeared from his life and he emerged damaged and numb. The only 'logical' explanation to Brian is that he was abducted by aliens, shadowy, feel-y forms that color the edges of his memories. 10 years later Brian is still trying to find the pieces that form the truth to his private puzzle.
Those same ten years have laid a different road for Neil, an angry teenage hustler, he's willing to sacrifice himself in the pursuit of emotions he felt the same summer that Brian was 'abducted'. His misunderstanding of a horrible act has led him to seek love and adoration in the cold hands and mouths of older men more than happy to spend some time with the 'rough trade' Neil has become. Only his best friend Wendy (Michelle Trachtenberg) knows that Neil's behaviour is due to something much bigger than he is and she can only steer him in the right lane for brief moments. But while Neil's need to fill an empty void leads him to New York City, Brian's investigation to his own void leads him to Neil and the elluisve key that unlocks the dark secret that haunts them both.
A drama with adult themes and emotions sounds like a bad fit for the filmmaker who once coined the term 'EAT FUCK KILL' in one of his movies, but Mysterious Skin shows us a director that has grown up by simply taking some time to look at his path and see that his vivid experiences could breathe life in new and exciting ways. In his past films, Araki tells a story like it was happening that very second. 'Hurry up or you'll miss something, oh see you missed it! Wait here's something else!' Barely leaving time to breathe. He never took the time to stop and reflect on the world he was commenting on. He had all of the visual details right but you couldn't see what it was all supposed to mean. Skin presents a world full of vivid details: an 8 year old's Halloween, the sugary sweetness of Froot Loops, the cliche Goth posters that say more than the mascara wearing boy they belong to, the slight dread of what really lies in the sky above. Only now time has let Araki fill every pop culture detail in his frames with an actual, potent feeling. He's always let the scenery do the talking only now, there's actually something to say. The fragile landscape that, as children, shapes our sexuality and identity is the vivid bull charging through this delicate china shop of a film.
Only the bull never disturbs the foundation. Araki doesn't ignore the seriousness of this subject matter but doesn't let the film get bogged down by it either. He pulls back the right amount and only gives us the details that matter. Those same details are the important ones lost for the boys in the film and when they find them, we do too. Araki does an incredible job by slowly unwrapping the past, never spelling things out for us, and lets us put our own experience into the situation. Much is said about innocence and what supposedly deviates things from a set road, but Mysterious Skin leads us to see a different side of things for ourselves.
The road to self discovery is truly a very long and arduous one. We start at one point, sure of our directions but can often go to places we never thought we would, good and bad, it's only when we emerge from the path and can look around do we really see the way things are. I've taken my own path in life and so has Gregg Araki, I'm lucky to have had his films as a reference point on my map over the years and to discover with him that growing up really is a place to begin things anew. Skin ends with the promise of finally knowing that bridging your past and your present is the best way to move forward. And now comes the next step.
Directed by Gregg Araki
(USA, 2005, 107min)
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