Gregg Araki's "Mysterious Skin"
Last night, I watched Gregg Araki's Mysterious Skin on DVD. I had trouble falling asleep -- it was one of the most disturbing movies I have ever seen. I have seen my share of incest and child abuse movies (e.g., David O. Russell's Spanking the Monkey and Todd Solondz's Happiness), but Mysterious Skin (MS henceforth) really got under my skin.
MS is about two young men in Kansas who were both molested by a baseball coach when they were eight years old. One of them was regularly sexual with the coach throughout one summer, and became a gay hustler in his later teenage years. The other was molested on two separate occasions, and grew up believing he had been abducted by aliens because he had frequent blackouts. There are some very difficult scenes to watch, including a rape of the hustler and an allusion to anal fisting when the teenagers were about eight years old. Following the alien-abductee along his path to the truth is especially difficult, as reality starts to seep in, puncturing his delusion. Also, witnessing the hustler put himself in ever more self-destructive situations with total strangers is hard to bear.
After watching this film, I started to wonder why I am drawn to sick and twisted films. Recent films I have watched include Chan-wook Park's Oldboy and Gaspar Noe's Irreversible. But even these did not upset me as much as MS. Mysterious Skin cuts so deep because it is so real. There really is nothing in the movie that is convoluted or hard to accept. Lots of children are molested, and the consequences are devastating. They grow into adults who dissociate (blank out) or are compelled to repeat self-destructive patterns, and more.
Just last weekend I saw Cate Blanchett in Hedda Gabler at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Even that play was unsettling -- the protagonist kills herself at the very end. I understand why mainstream Hollywood films are so successful -- because they offer a pleasant escape from real life, and all the loose ends are (ideally) tied up at the end. Whereas in MS, the hustler states that it is not all right -- there is no happy ending.
I don't think most people want to be unsettled and disturbed. But there are those artists whose mission it is to expose the underground elements of the cultural psyche, and Gregg Araki is one of them. Pluto and Scorpio relate to the general themes of secrets, abuse, violence, sex and power. Araki -- born December 17, 1959 -- has Pluto square Mercury and Mars in Sagittiarus. Additionally, he has a Venus-Neptune conjunction in Scorpio sextile Pluto. Pluto is also trine his Saturn. Mars-Pluto is a classic combination relating to abuse of sexual power. Mercury-Pluto obsesses about sex, secrets and power. Venus-Neptune idealizes love and is prone to near-delusional fantasies about relationships. Placed in Scorpio, Venus expresses herself in an intense, erotic, and controlling manner. (Curiously, Araki's Sun and Moon do not make aspects to Pluto. His Sagittarius Sun trines Uranus, giving him the ability to provoke and shock, which he certainly does in MS.)
I know that my attraction to dark films can be attributed to my Venus-Pluto opposition, with Pluto in my first house. It's funny because even though my girlfriend is a Scorpio, she refuses to watch these types of films. Obviously, Pluto is a much more powerful archetypal force than the zodiac sign it rules. And when it impacts Venus, the planet of relationships, then there is a fascination with issues of sex and power.
I have not read one iota about Gregg Araki, but I like to think that this talented filmmaker channels his darkness into his movies so that he feels less compelled to act out these issues in his personal life. Certainly, watching something on screen that mirrors the murky depths of one's inner world is one of the potentially healing aspects of cinema. But it is not for the feint of heart. Actually, watching a film like this could probably re-traumatize a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. So I would only recommend this film for those viewers who want to directly confront the underworld. It would not be disturbing were it not so well-made.
MS is about two young men in Kansas who were both molested by a baseball coach when they were eight years old. One of them was regularly sexual with the coach throughout one summer, and became a gay hustler in his later teenage years. The other was molested on two separate occasions, and grew up believing he had been abducted by aliens because he had frequent blackouts. There are some very difficult scenes to watch, including a rape of the hustler and an allusion to anal fisting when the teenagers were about eight years old. Following the alien-abductee along his path to the truth is especially difficult, as reality starts to seep in, puncturing his delusion. Also, witnessing the hustler put himself in ever more self-destructive situations with total strangers is hard to bear.
After watching this film, I started to wonder why I am drawn to sick and twisted films. Recent films I have watched include Chan-wook Park's Oldboy and Gaspar Noe's Irreversible. But even these did not upset me as much as MS. Mysterious Skin cuts so deep because it is so real. There really is nothing in the movie that is convoluted or hard to accept. Lots of children are molested, and the consequences are devastating. They grow into adults who dissociate (blank out) or are compelled to repeat self-destructive patterns, and more.
Just last weekend I saw Cate Blanchett in Hedda Gabler at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Even that play was unsettling -- the protagonist kills herself at the very end. I understand why mainstream Hollywood films are so successful -- because they offer a pleasant escape from real life, and all the loose ends are (ideally) tied up at the end. Whereas in MS, the hustler states that it is not all right -- there is no happy ending.
I don't think most people want to be unsettled and disturbed. But there are those artists whose mission it is to expose the underground elements of the cultural psyche, and Gregg Araki is one of them. Pluto and Scorpio relate to the general themes of secrets, abuse, violence, sex and power. Araki -- born December 17, 1959 -- has Pluto square Mercury and Mars in Sagittiarus. Additionally, he has a Venus-Neptune conjunction in Scorpio sextile Pluto. Pluto is also trine his Saturn. Mars-Pluto is a classic combination relating to abuse of sexual power. Mercury-Pluto obsesses about sex, secrets and power. Venus-Neptune idealizes love and is prone to near-delusional fantasies about relationships. Placed in Scorpio, Venus expresses herself in an intense, erotic, and controlling manner. (Curiously, Araki's Sun and Moon do not make aspects to Pluto. His Sagittarius Sun trines Uranus, giving him the ability to provoke and shock, which he certainly does in MS.)
I know that my attraction to dark films can be attributed to my Venus-Pluto opposition, with Pluto in my first house. It's funny because even though my girlfriend is a Scorpio, she refuses to watch these types of films. Obviously, Pluto is a much more powerful archetypal force than the zodiac sign it rules. And when it impacts Venus, the planet of relationships, then there is a fascination with issues of sex and power.
I have not read one iota about Gregg Araki, but I like to think that this talented filmmaker channels his darkness into his movies so that he feels less compelled to act out these issues in his personal life. Certainly, watching something on screen that mirrors the murky depths of one's inner world is one of the potentially healing aspects of cinema. But it is not for the feint of heart. Actually, watching a film like this could probably re-traumatize a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. So I would only recommend this film for those viewers who want to directly confront the underworld. It would not be disturbing were it not so well-made.
4 Comments:
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I am a bit surprised that you find
"Mysterious Skin" harder to watch than a movie like "Irreversible".
Although "Mysterious Skin" has a few tough scenes,they were nowhere near to what was shown in "Irreversible".Consider the rape scene,this one was drawn out to overlong lengths that it makes me wonder what the director was trying to put accross to his viewers.And did we really need to see someone's head being smashed to pulp to know what violence can do to someone?Gregg Araki was telling a story,Gaspar Noé was just doing his best (And succeeding!) at upsetting the viewers as much as he could and making them feel sick while doing so.Never mind the story...
Araki made me care about his characters, so it hurt that much more to see what happened to them as children. Whereas in Irreversible, the viewer does not even get to connect with the Monica Belluci character until the very end of the movie. I think this rape sequence would be even harder to watch if the movie showed events in chronological order.
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