There is something very curious about director Gregg Araki. On the surface, I feel like I should like him more than I do. As one of the pioneers of the New Queer Cinema of the early 90s, he stands out even within the LGBT cinematic landscape thanks to the fact that he’s got a very punk rock aesthetic. He claims that his films are snapshots of a moment, and you understand how passionate about a moment he is.
He is unafraid to reflect a reckless archetype, of people who have grown jaded by the system around them. Even when I found The Living End (1992) one of the most audacious views on the AIDS crisis. In the film, it features two diagnosed men who have no idea how long they’ll live and proceed to live every day like it’s their last. It’s snarky, very 90s, and even more a Los Angeles movie down to its rudeness. The thing is that on its surface, it was a fun film that had so many colorful characters that I should’ve loved it more. Here was Araki, who was self-aware enough to put a card reading “An Irresponsible Film by Gregg Araki” at the start of his film. He was so edgy, and purposeful in his anger.
And yet I’ve never been able to love his work because of how scrappy it’s felt. He’s clearly more about attitude than the story at times that it bothered me. Sure, I’ve mostly seen his more conventional narratives like Smiley Face (2007) and White Bird in a Blizzard (2014), but I kept believing that I would see his masterpiece. The Living End felt like I was getting closer, finding the raw nerve of which could describe his entire career. But it was imperfect, reflective of a filmmaker still finding their bigger identity.
The irony is that the fourth outing with Mysterious Skin (2004) did the trick, but without being the fun view of anarchism and frustration that I had come to associate with him. Instead, it was a queer narrative that’s very different, more taboo. It’s one that focuses on intimate relationships that cause trauma as one grows older, unable to process the violations of trust that they had as a child.
I kind of knew to expect something devastating, that the selling point of the film (alien invasion) was only a red herring for something bigger. Even then, you can’t prepare yourself for the emotionally eviscerating experience that is this film. The characters are just as mad and ready to cut you with a switchblade, but this is Araki moving into territory that’s more sincere, pushing away jokes in favor of an ick factor that is needed to make every last beat land. Prepare for a sad story that doesn’t even have a silver lining. If there is any moral, it’s that trauma is inescapable, defining us in ways that we’ll grapple with for the rest of our lives.
Maybe the biggest selling point is the presence of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who may have gone on to a very interesting and experimental acting career as an adult, but in 2004 was still the kid who you knew from Angels in the Outfield (1994) and 3rd Rock from the Sun. He had this innocence that likely felt bizarre going into Mysterious Skin. It was going to be one of those radical against type roles that made you reconsider his entire career. I personally wonder what it would’ve been like to see Gordon-Levitt going into this film without any knowledge of where his career was going. That may be what Araki was attracted to in casting him, and I think it pays off even if this “gimmick” doesn’t exist for you.
Unlike his other “look at me, I’m edgy” role in Havoc (2005), this is one that’s given a serious levity that is fully realized. You wouldn’t expect it from a film that finds him playing a male prostitute, but Araki manages to shoot every sex scene with respectful censorship so that it’s more drawn in by faces, of trying to find the humanity within this transaction. You can see that in some ways Gordon-Levitt is broken inside, doing what he can to get by. There are also shots reminiscent of alien invasion motifs in sci-fi, making it all feel more clinical than having any ounce of passion. Even if this is supposed to be a scene of pleasure, it’s clear how this is just routine. Make a few dollars and you’ll be fine.
The gist of the film is straightforward: two boys witness an “alien invasion.” One doesn’t remember and the other can’t forget.
Gordon-Levitt is Neil, the boy who blacked out and is now a disaffected teen looking at life with a cynical lens. The boy who remembers is Brian (Brady Corbett), doing everything in his power to make sense of this moment.
Even if the audience gets to see the saucer overwhelm the skyline, there’s no real invasion. It may conjure up Brian’s interest in investigating his own trauma, but there is no journey aboard a spaceship, just a mystery of the mind that asks why that is the prominent image that is stuck with him. He’s become reclusive, unable to really connect with anyone for fear of letting them down. He isn’t like Neil, who is reckless and puts himself in the way of danger. He’s just depressed all the time and keeps to himself.
What makes everything else this insightful experience is that Araki isn’t using it for prestige drama points. His characters still feel like the queer outcasts that we’ve known from his other work, willing to curse out authority and blast punk rock from their radio. These characters are genuine to his worldview, though rarely have they been allowed to have backstories this dense, this tragic that you understand every last decision they make throughout the film.
Of course, it starts with a loss of innocence and one that comes with one of Araki’s most disturbing images: a child being covered in cereal. The bright colors suggest something more upbeat and positive, but what it is at the moment that Neil was violated by his baseball coach, creating his standard of beauty in a twisted way. What started as a period of trust became broken one night when, among other things, a symbolic bowl of cereal fell onto the floor and smashed into a million pieces. As Neil puts it, he witnessed a kaleidoscope break apart, and you can see the life being sucked out of his eyes, dealing with something uncertain, invaded by an alien that isn’t of the supernatural kind. It’s more one of his emotions, a person he trusted breaking it forever.
We don’t find out what happens to Brian until the third act, but it showed just how manipulative and awful this adult was, not realizing how he ruined these two lives, among likely many more.
You got the sense that things could’ve been different if Brian and Neil never joined baseball. Maybe they could’ve lived successful lives rich with self-confidence. Instead, they’re incapable of ever feeling comfortable in their own skin, finding thrills in reductive ways.
A lot of credit should go to Gordon-Levitt, who is the real centerpiece of this two-person story. More than Corbet, he’s required to have the most uncomfortable scenes in the whole film. It isn’t just the depiction of gay sex, but the implications that come with those moments. They’re not fun. It wears on his body, finding him breaking down before he’s hit 20. By the end, he’s a victim of terrible abuse, which is the only graphic scene that Araki shoots as one manipulative exchange finds Neil bruised on the sidewalk outside a housing complex.
This is what his life is reduced to. Even if the world around him is capable of love, he is somehow unable to understand it. He has friends, but even they seem distant in his life. Every scene ends with a cut to black, reflecting this uncertain grey area that he’ll never be able to understand. It’s the act of repressed memory, serving as the one piece of emotional safety from something much worse.
I have personally never experienced abuse like this. I do not know what it’s like to be in the situations depicted in this film, and yet this feels so real. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a story of abuse this straightforward, unwilling to ignore how painful even the mundane moments can be. Even as we’re piecing together the larger picture, we know it’s cracked, and Araki knows to direct his emotional frustration as something physical and insular, as these things that are human. There are jokes and moments of levity, but it’s never within the eye of the hurricane. If anything, it puts into context how bad that hurricane is going to be.
Honestly, I don’t know that I want a prestigious Araki. It feels like it would be unbearable given his exclusive fascination with queer youth stories. Whereas you can sense the dread of The Living End in every decision, it still was a film denying its sadness. Mysterious Skin is a fascinating alternative that embraces its sadness without ever outrunning it for a second. It’s too rooted in the character, and no matter how much of Araki’s personality gets slathered over this, it’ll still be there.
The thing is that I want to keep watching Araki movies. He has his own mentality that you can’t help but find charming. While I don’t love everything I’ve seen of his, there is something about bringing to life a frustrating time in everyone’s life with his unique vantage point. This just happens to be one of the worst tragedies one can live with, and few voices could make it feel as honest as Araki.
I don’t know that this would be accepted as a prestige movie, especially in a time where queer cinema wasn’t as wildly accepted. Even then, you can’t help but wish that this got the recognition that it deserved, opening up conversations about serious issues that have been treated less sensitively for Oscar attention. If anything, it’s still a bummer that Gordon-Levitt has yet to get into awards consideration after turning in a performance this arresting. As for Corbet, he’s fine. He’s in literally every indie movie ever.
What I love is how Araki captures a moment so perfectly that you feel like you’re walking around at that very second. His films have an immediacy about them that you know exactly what emotion you’re supposed to be feeling. Usually, they’re more upbeat than this, but it only shows how masterful and in control of his tone he is, where the random kids you know in high school have this emotional depth that you used to take for granted.
To be honest, I really hope that I see another Araki movie in this column because I believe that he’s much more interesting than the work I’ve seen. Much like Otto Preminger, I see something wonderful in his perverse love of outsiders, reflecting a study of society through them that really works at agitating conventions. He ultimately loves his subject and you can tell by how protective he is of them, where even if the world is lashing out at them he’s still giving them a hug, demanding you to see them as people deserving of love. Nowhere is that clearer than with Mysterious Skin, which may seem very weird tonally from the other films I’ve seen of his, but only until you stop and listen to what he has to say.
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