As the summer was winding down, one could forgive A24 for wanting to pop the champagne bottles. Few months have been as indicative of what made them a powerhouse indie studio as those hot months when people flocked to theaters. In the case of 2019, they had covered several bases quite effectively, managing to include everything from cult favorites like Under the Silver Lake (2019) to horror hits like Midsommar (2019), and prestige dramas that unfortunately didn’t go far enough with The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019) and The Farewell (2019). With so many hits accounted for, how would they enter the fall, ready to tackle prestige season with the best of them? With Skin (2019), they planned to use a reliable old formula to attract an audience with a headline-worthy plot.
Depending on how one wants to approach Guy Nattiv’s career, the story either begins a decade before or years before. To provide some context, the focus will begin at the start of Nattiv’s career, where he became a filmmaker in Israel and produced shorts like Strangers (2003) that gained international acclaim. His themes were always about socially progressive causes, especially in showing the public’s conflicting relationship with Neo-Nazis. This could be in part because his grandparent survived the holocaust, but it’s a recurring motif that played through all of his work, leading him to gigs that landed premieres at places like Sundance. He eventually moved to Los Angeles, CA in order to try and break more into the industry.
When conceiving Skin, he was drawn to articles about Antisemitism in America. He would even recount moments in a restaurant where speaking Hebrew to his wife caused a few xenophobic comments. It’s what opened his eyes to racism even in progressive cities. Along with seeing the documentary Erasing Hate (2011) featuring Bryon Widner having his racist tattoos removed, he began to pursue a story about a man reconsidering the way he thinks, asking why he chose to hate instead of understanding. At the time that he originally was shopping it around, studios rejected him, believing that the story was a myth, that skinheads were not a big problem. It’s important to remember that this was prior to the 2016 American Presidential Election, a turning point that exploited how many coastal cities lived in ignorance.
It was his wife/producer Sharon Maymon’s idea to make a proof of concept short that showed how the story could work. It can be a bit confusing to discuss Skin the short and Skin the movie because both came out in 2019 but took wildly different approaches to the concept. The short emphasized a racist who was tattooed to look Black whereas the movie emphasized a search for compassion and even removal of tattoos. Having run into Danielle Macdonald at Sundance promoting Patti Cake$ (2017), he slowly assembled a team for the short which he shot on a shoestring budget. Long story short, it was a critical hit that landed him a Best Live Action Short Oscar, making him only the second Israeli to win an Oscar. He still considers the moment significant for people in Israel’s film industry.
Another thing that may be a bit confusing is trying to compare the trajectory of Skin the movie to other similar A24 trajectories. Whereas directors like Sebastian Lelo with Gloria Bell (2018) won an Oscar and then made a film for them, Nattiv made Skin almost in tandem with the short, having it released only months after winning the Oscar. This could largely be that timing was on his side. After being told that Neo-Nazism in America was a myth, there was suddenly evidence that suggested his story held deeper value. By the time of the film’s release, events such as The Charlottesville Unite the Right rally and The Tree of Life shooting had entered national headlines. In fact, the weekend of Skin’s release featured enough mass shootings to count for 30 casualties.
To back up, the story of Skin the movie’s production dovetails nicely with the short. Following the success, he turned his attention to Widner’s story. He cast Jamie Bell on the belief that he had an emotional complexity that would help him portray Widner as a much more complicated human. Bell would put on 40 pounds and claim that he had difficulty getting used to the emotional detachment of his character. Even then, he enjoyed the challenge. Nattiv would hire a professional tattoo artist to help design convincing looks. Macdonald would return along with major roles by Mike Coulter (Luke Cage) and Vera Farmiga. Dan Romer signed on to do the score.
One of the funnier things about the film was that due to its limited budget, there sometimes wasn’t enough finances to cover multiple versions of Bell’s tattoos. As a result, he claimed to wear them for several days. The crew refused to eat with him because of it. Meanwhile, Macdonald claimed that she got so used to them that she didn’t recognize Bell without them. To only add ominous undertones to the production, Bell met Widner via phone call on the day of the Charlottesville Rally that included The 45th President calling Neo-Nazis “Good people on both sides.” Their conversation was cut short when Widner claimed that he needed to check on the safety of his friend. Nattiv also claims to be good friends with Widner.
The film premiered at The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) to positive reviews. Given that Skin the short was also making the rounds at the same time, Nattiv was a big deal. He dedicated the film to his grandparent and promoted the idea that people aren’t born racist but are taught and thus can be encouraged to learn compassion. A24 would purchase the film and release it as part of their DirecTV branch. Despite coming off of Nattiv’s Oscar win, it wasn’t enough to make it a sleeper hit. While it got good reviews, it faded largely into obscurity despite having all of the hallmarks of an A24 hit. It’s very clear that the studio imagined Bell’s transformation earning awards contention, but alas it wasn’t enough.
The film may have not won any awards, but it earned a considerably positive response. According to critics aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, Skin currently has a 76% rating. Simran Hans of Observer (UK) lead the positive reviews when noting “Bell is magnetic in the role, and there's real chemistry between him and Macdonald, but the film's formal glossiness and frequent overhead shots create distance between the viewer and the hate crimes on display.” Carlos Bonfil of La Jornada agreed when suggesting “In an eloquent way, the Israeli director exposes the contradictions behind a racial prejudice.” Those who were less favorable included Yasser Medina of Cinemaficionados, claiming that “It has a powerful start, but in the second half it loses strength with his text on tolerance, inclusivity, and redemption.” Overall, it has an impressively positive response.
Even if Skin wasn’t a runaway hit that continued A24’s winning streak, it still did enough to make for an impressive feature. Nattiv went on to do a family film and hasn’t signed on with the studio for another movie yet. Still, his decision to explore race relations and how complicated the human condition is proved to be perfect timing. As of this publication, there are still problems regarding this and shows the value of filmmakers like Nattiv. Continuing the trend of tackling taboo subjects is a film that features a disturbing video and trying to come to terms with escalating fallout in a very different way.
Up Next: Share (2019)
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