Gregg Araki's Afterschool Special

A few weeks back, Filmbrain wrote a little something about the current trend of "youth in severe crisis" films that are being churned out en masse from both the Indie-American and European film scenes. Gregg Araki's latest, Mysterious Skin, is another perfect example of this "when-bad-things-happen-to-good-kids" genre. Filmbrain has never been much of an Araki fan. His particular brand of late-capitalist pop nihilism combined with his angst-ridden gay teen characters has always reeked of superficiality. Sure, films like Totally Fucked Up and The Doom Generation contain loads of shocking images, but they come off as little more than manipulative efforts by Araki to....well, shock. Almost all of his films are lacking in any real substance, and cameos by the likes of several Brady kids, John Ritter, Charlotte Rae, et. al. expose him for the PoMo referential hipster that he is. (An Araki fan once told Filmbrain, "He's my generation's Elia Kazan" - whatever that means.) Mysterious Skin is Araki's debut into the world of adaptation. Based on the Scott Heim novel of the same name, it tells the story of Brian and Neil, two Kansas boys who at the age of eight are molested by their baseball coach, and the very different paths their lives take over the next ten years as a result. Angel-faced Neil, already aware of his homosexuality at age eight, is an easy target for the pederastic coach -- his single mother is too busy drinking and screwing to worry about the many hours her son is away from home. Brian is the polar opposite -- a geeky, shy, awkward boy who isn't manly enough for his all-American dad. Neither boy tells anybody about the molestation, and there is a tremendous change in both of them. Brian draws further inwards, has nosebleeds and fainting spells, and becomes convinced that he was captured by a UFO that summer. With Neil it's the exact opposite -- by fifteen he's a gay hustler who does a lot of drugs and proudly announces that he's "fucked every guy in town." At eighteen he heads to New York City to continue his life of prostitution, while at the same Brian becomes obsessed with finding Neil, convinced that he was also a victim of the aliens. Araki breaks no new ground here -- there are no great insights into either the predator or the victims, nor does the film have anything original to say about the subject. Kids who are molested turn into fucked up teens -- that's about the long and short of it. As in his past films, he peppers Mysterious Skin with scenes that will no doubt anger and offend, but they draw way too much attention to themselves -- you can almost imagine Araki standing on the set, self-satisfied in the fact that he's doing something nobody else had ever dared. What he fails to understand is that without any sense of emotional attachment we are simply staring numbly at his "dangerous" images. The screenplay is full of lines that Araki has his actors recite with extreme intensity -- lines like, "Where most people have a heart, Neil has a bottomless black hole. Watch out, or you'll fall in forever", or "This is New York City. You do the wrong thing with the wrong person and you die" -- dialog begging to be taken seriously. Yet without his trusty ironic distance, Araki turns out to be a pretty poor screenwriter. (Filmbrain prayed there wouldn't be a "We're not in Kansas anymore", but there it was.) It's a shame, because the two lead actors (Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Brady Corbet) are really quite exceptional. Though Mysterious Skin finds Araki in a more character driven mode (and a fair amount more sensitive) than in his earlier films, it still ultimately fails. Instead of his usual postmodern forays into sex, violence and the teenage condition, Araki tackles a highly serious issue, but is unable (or unwilling) to get close enough to the material to give it any real substance. Neil's downward spiral and resulting lessons learned about the dangers of hustling and unsafe sex are cliché ridden, and painfully obvious. Though Brian's path to healing has glimmers of hope, Araki doesn't appear to be half as interested in his story. In the hands of another director, Heim's novel might have been turned into a challenging, compelling film. Instead, what we are left with is a poorly written Afterschool Special with a great soundtrack.

Comments

[phyrephox]

Ah, I love it when someone vindicates my decision *not* to see particular movie. Thanks FB!

By the way, are you attending Tribeca at all?

[Filmbrain]

Well...don't necessarily take my word for it.

I've already received two very angry emails this morning. One claimed that my dislike of the film is due to my being homophobic, and the other said I was too old to "get" Araki. While the latter might be true, the knee-jerk reaction of the first one is ludicrous. Araki's sexuality does not preclude him from criticism, sorry.

This film, in my opinion, shares a great deal with Todd Solondz's Palindromes. While Mysterious Skin is not nearly as misanthropic as the Solondz, both films seem to enjoy their excursions into one of the last taboos. (For the record, Solondz's Happiness is an excellent film that deals with the same subject matter, amongst other things. Where/how did Solondz lose his way?)

I wasn't personally offended or disgusted by anything in Mysterious Skin, I just don't see the purpose in showing a ten year old giving a blowjob to another child in order to placate him after tying him up and torturing him by launching a bottle rocket out of his mouth. If this is how Araki needs to show me how damaged this boy is...well, that level of obviousness is simply boring.

As for the TFF, I've not been to anything yet, but will (hopefully) be catching a few this week. I'm definitely going to the Mackendrick film tomorrow afternoon, and am hoping to see 4, which I missed in Berlin.

[jessica]

Filmbrain, I understand your point that 'Mysterious Skin' (which I have just seen) could have been more imaginative and powerful in the hands of a different director, for sure. But as it stood, it was still a pretty good effort. I don’t think Araki is patting himself on the back for dealing with a taboo at all; I think there is bravery in any attempt to make us empathise what it might be to go through that. Anything that gives you a sense of what life is like for someone other than yourself should, in the right hands, make you a more aware person, more conscious of what is or might be going on around you. Regardless of whether it lives up to your subjective standards of 'successful' or 'failure'.

Your comments imply you are so worldly wise as to dismiss the plot as cliché ridden and painfully obvious, which makes you sound all-knowing; clearly you’ve seen it all before and it bores you. So one more attempt to render the fallout of child abuse is boring and obvious. You are welcome to your snide boredom about Araki's directing tactics. But you can leave a sense of curiosity about portraying someone else's life from someone else's point of view, and the instinctive empathy this might engender, to people who are still capable of it. As you said, some people go through shit when they’re young - but why the heck should you be whinging about them being given a voice? When there are attempts at something like this being portrayed, what is needed in response is not a worldy-wise disdain for what you consider to be an attempt to offend or disgust(which the film is not trying to be), but merely an attempt at empathy. You might want to bear this simple fact in mind.

What is also unadmirable is your discussion of whether whatever flimsy cinematic genre you think you’re zeitgeist enough to have pigeonholed is overegging the sense of western teenage persecution. Why don’t you go and see '50 First Dates' if you want to see cinema where young people are not ‘simply whinging’? Clearly with your all-knowing compassion fatigue, that’s more your level.

[Filmbrain]

Jessica --

Thanks for the comment.

Of course, there is no way of knowing for sure what Araki's intention was, but I based my assessment on his past films, which clearly were set up to shock, offend, and see how far he could push the envelope.

I don't think of the film (or Araki) as "brave" (as you put it), nor can I accept your criteria as a reason not to dismiss or dislike the film. Pretty much every film gives me a sense of what life is like for someone other than myself -- but to praise a director simply because he/she made the "effort" would leave a lot of film critics unemployed.

An "attempt to render the fallout of child abuse" is boring and obvious if it either fails to bring anything new to the subject (or limits itself to cliché), or is out to shock, offend, exploit, etc. (Again, we can argue about that last point.) You'll forgive me if I don't take a film with lines like "I hate this buttcrack town!" or "Fuck me up the ass with your hot teenage cock" as serious attempts at empathizing with victims of child abuse. On that note, if Araki was so interested in having us empathize with the victims, why was he so un-evenhanded with his approach to the two characters?

I think you misunderstand my comments about the recent spate of films that have young people as victims. As for giving them a voice, I believe there are a handful of filmmakers doing just that -- Shunji Iwai's All About Lily Chou-Chou is a perfect example. However, when I see a film like Ken Park or Mysterious Skin I see more exploitation and directorial self-indulgence than I do attempts at empathy.

It's a fine line -- I grant you that, and ultimately a subjective one. But I don't need to see a teenager being raped and beaten to learn about the dangers of hustling, nor to see a lesion-covered man to learn about the dangers of unprotected sex. Araki's sledgehammer effect might work on some, but not me. Films about victims (of any age) work better when taking a more subtle approach, in my opinion.

Though not about sexual abuse, Shinji Aoyama's Eureka centers around three victims of trauma (two children and one adult) and is far more successful in creating a sense of empathy, and far more subtle.

[jessica]

Thanks for your response - we clearly disagree heavily about the film, but ultimately, we both have fair enough points. I'll try to check out Eureka and Lily Chou-Chou - cheers for the tip.

[The Cinesthete]

I wrote a review of Mysterious Skin on my web site before I read yours. The strange thing is that we (sort of)said the same things about it, but I liked it and you didn't. This makes me wonder about how influential the director of the film actually is. Not in the obvious way, but one's view of the director as a person and the director's works as a whole. Mysterious Skin was the first Araki film I have seen. If I had seen a few others before this, I probably would not have liked it as much. If Mysterious Skin was the first Araki film you saw, would you have liked it any better? Well, probably not. But that point is that I think our view of the filmmaker holds sway over our opinion of the film.

Just look at Palindromes and Todd Solondz. Personally, I enjoyed it on my first viewing, but then after reading about the film, Solondz, and why he did certain things, I am starting to dislike it. If I had just gone with my initial impressions and my own thoughts about the film, I would still have liked it. Just as if you didn't stay for the Q&A, maybe you wouldn't have hated it as much.

I think it can be applied to films we like as well. Are certain films considered good just because they are made by someone we like? Well, its a thought.