richardw42 said:
sorry for my silence. My mum passed away very suddenly at the end of January. Big shock to us all and I did have to go up to Scotland for a bit.
Sorry to hear about your sad news. I hope that you are coping well, but it can take a while to come to terms with the event.
On to Mysterious Skin.
The early sections of the film lived up to the billing « not for the squeamish”, but afterwards became less difficult.
It was clear that Neil had been abused, and the initial assumption was that so had Brian. I presumed that the middle section of the film, would be the precursor to the two boys exacting revenge on the baseball coach during the final section. How wrong I was.
The middle section of the film, gradually becomes more like a standard coming of age movie. We were introduced to the other three main adolescent characters, Wendy, Eric and Avalyn.
Wendy has known Neil since the start of the film, and clearly has feelings for Neil, but also knows that her love must remain always unrequited.
Avalyn also believes she was abducted by aliens. She starts to form a fragile friendship with Brian, but when she tries to instigate a sexual interest in him, he reacts with intense panic and refuses to speak to her again. I think we are left to assume that her belief in abduction by aliens, must have been caused by sexual abuse within her farming community.
The role of Eric is not initially clear – he is obviously gay and is attracted by Neil, but he is gently warned off by Wendy telling him that Neil does not have a heart, but rather "a bottomless black hole, that you fall into". Eric gradually becomes a more sympathetic character, and eventually forms a platonic friendship with Brian, and is key in enabling Brian and Neil to meet, when Neil returns home for Christmas.
During this middle section of the film, Brian maintains his belief that he was abducted by aliens, and keeps experiencing dreams and flashbacks, that seem to often trigger nosebleeds. These flashbacks convince him that he needs to discover what really happened to him during those missing hours after one baseball game.
Neil in contrast, falls into a career as a male prostitute, a career that he continues when he moves to live with Wendy in New York city. His encounters as an urban male prostitute, gradually awaken his compassionate side, and a feeling that he is following a self-destructive path. This feeling is reinforced when he is tricked by a large man into snorting cocaine, before being raped, beaten and left for dead.
The final section of the film focusses on Neils return home for Christmas. He meets Brian, then breaks into the home that was previously rented by the baseball coach, and explains how the coach groomed both boys to make the abuse seem normal and acceptable, and how a bluish porch light shining through the bedroom window gave the abusive incidents an eerie atmosphere. Neil then tells Brian that the coach made them kiss each other before he kissed them both and then made them perform sexual acts on him. Brian breaks down and collapses into Neil's arms.
I did find the early sections a bit unnerving to watch, and thought that the middle section did seem to drag on – maybe a few of the scenes could have been trimmed a bit. Nevertheless I did find the film strangely positive, in that hopefully Neil and Brian could now move on to a better future, now that they had hopefully come to terms with their experiences with the coach. I did find a sympathetic bond with Neil, Brian, Wendy and Eric.
The film also seemed slightly unusual in that the underlying theme was driven by sex, but none of the 5 adolescents was having sex with each other.
I presume that the subject matter did make this a contrversial film to make/distribute - thankfully great care was taken when filming the initial sections of the film, to avoid filming the adults and children at the same time, meaning that the scenes that appear on screen, are the result of rigourous use of script and editing tools. Certainly a controversial subject matter when filmed, and unfortunately all the recent revelations about Saville, Glitter, politicians, other DJs, care workers, etc, begin to give the impression that such abuse was commonplace.
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