THE DOPE-I've always felt that the human body is a pretty weird machine, and there are some fairly universal situations I can think of that prove this point. You feel something stuck in your shoe, like a little rock or something, maybe it's s sharp jab and you think there's a needle in your sock. But when you take your shoe off and find what was poking you, it's always some teeny tiny little speck of nothing. Why did it feel so spectacularly huge? And then, there are those times when you notice some dried blood on your hand, and you clean it away to find a cut that you have NO IDEA how you got. Why didn't you feel yourself getting cut? Because you didn't see it? Things like this can make us question our very relationship with pain and with our bodies in general. You've all heard of mind over matter, about the dudes that can walk across hot coals and not run around screaming like Daffy Duck. Is pain really a matter of perception sometimes? Just how much are we defined by our own bodies? See, I told you. Weird.
Marina De Van's brilliant film IN MY SKIN is about a woman who becomes so detatched from her own body that she begins cheating on her boyfriend with herself, and we're not talking masturbation here, either. We're talking about getting away secretly, lying, obsessive thought, kissing, tugging, caressing, exploring and even devouring herself. De Van (who also wrote and directed the film) plays Esther, a market research analyst who wanders off at a swanky party and trips a few times while exploring a construction site. Upon returning indoors, she discovers that she's got a huge gash in her leg, and she's been bleeding all over the floor. Instead of telling her friends (who've seen the blood but don't realize it belongs to Esther), she leaves the party and goes out for more drinks with them before finally going to the hospital to get stitched up.
After this experience, Esther finds herself strangely cleansed, full of ideas and no longer experiencing writer's block. She works all night and wakes up feeling refreshed, but it's not long before she becomes compelled to check out her wound, removing the bandages too early and running off while at the office to find a place to secretly poke at it, cut it, and experience the rush of feeling she got when she first realized she was injured. Instead of making an attempt to reach out for help when she realizes she may have a problem, Esther withdraws further inside herself and gets weirder and weirder, even going so far as to stage a car accident so her boyfriend thinks the cuts on her arm weren't self-inflicted.
However, this isn't a Lifetime movie of the week about "cutting" (self-mutilation as a means of waking up from feelings of numbness, a reaction to strong emotions or a desire to be reminded of pain and what is real). Instead, Esther views her body as an object of desire and fascination, something entirely separate from herself. It doesn't hurt when she slices herself up, but rather it amazes her and energizes her, like she's discovering her lover's body inch by inch. Marina De Van's honesty and willingness to explore such a strange and yet somehow familiar curiosity is what separates IN MY SKIN from any normal "horror" movie, as the horror is experienced by the viewer and not the characters in the film. The movie succeeds in making its audience just as appalled at the subject matter as Esther's friends who see what she's done to herself, and yet just as fascinated as Esther herself with her relationship with her skin. In one unforgettable sequence, Esther gets drunk and goes to a hotel room, where she slowly carves herself up, covers herself in blood and even eats her own flesh. De Van's genius work here as both an actor AND a filmmaker is that we never see Esther as a monster, but rather a person with a secret love that they cannot dare let the world know about. The scene is oddly sensual and erotic, yet gross and violent at the same time. See, I told you. Weird.
IN MY SKIN doesn't take a serious medical issue and try to make some big statement about it, and also doesn't intentionally shock and horrify. Instead, the film serves as the work of a true artist who pulls no punches, delivering not only one of the most intensely personal films I've seen in a long time, but also one of the most unsettling and astonishing. As much as I wanted to (several times), I could not look away.
MEMORABLE SCENES-I defy anyone not to cringe during the "bandage removal" scene.
DVD NOTES-This movie is presented in its original French language with removable English subtitles. Also included is a very helpful commentary (also subtitled) by De Van, along with two of her short films.
(June 2004)