Mysterious Skin - an alternative to Hollywood

The components that define American capitalist ideology are:

- Capitalism
- The work ethic
- Marriage
- Nature
- Progress / technology / the city
- Success and wealth
- Portrayal of class
- Near compulsory happy ending
- Ideal male / ideal female
- Settled husband / father / the erotic woman

Gregg Araki’s Mysterious Skin is a film which most definitely does not conform to the Hollywood ideals. In this film none of the above components apply. Its plot contains a very unsettling depiction of sexual abuse on young children, and shows how the two young victims, Neil and Brian, react to this abuse in different ways as they grow up. The film can be very unsettling at times, and we are not left with an uplifting outcome. The fact that Neil actually enjoys his encounters with his baseball coach is unnerving, as is his attitude towards sex as he gets older. He also seems rather naïve which is highlighted when he moves to New York and by his lack of awareness about the dangers of casual sex. These issues, along with his prostitution as a means of earning a living are not the kind of themes that are usually explored in Hollywood, and this especially applies to this film as there does not really seem to be any moral outcome.

Brian on the other hand is described as being almost asexual, his reaction to his abuse is by forcing himself to believe that he was abducted by aliens as a child. He rejects his sexuality altogether and it is not until the two boys meet again many years later that they both begin to come to terms with what happened to them.

The amount of graphic sex portrayed in Mysterious Skin would not allow it to be recognised as a Hollywood movie. The idea that sexual orientation does not interfere with friendship, for example both Neil and Brian’s separate friendships with Eric, are also highly unusual.
Glyn Davis’s article discusses the idea of ‘camp’ and what camp really means. For me Mysterious Skin does not seem like a camp film in the way that camp is usually seen as meaning. Some of the examples Davis gives are the music of Kylie Minogue and the film Titanic.

Davis also talks about some of Araki’s other films in relation to Queer Cinema, though not Mysterious Skin, and points out that the five aspects of ‘queer campness’ which can be seen in Akari’s films are: 1. Performance style, 2. The role of trashy ephemera, 3. The use of parody, 4. Political aims, and 5. References to earlier ‘queer’ camp filmmakers.

I think all these elements are true of Mysterious Skin. The performances are quite over the top, especially those by Gordon Jason-Levitt and Michelle Trachtenberg, and there is an element of trashy which is displayed in the hair of the characters Eric and Wendy. I am unsure what the references to other queer filmmakers are but there are certainly film references to be found, such as in the alien posters on Brian’s walls.

Overall this is one of the best films I have seen in a while. Although it is unsettling, it leaves you with something to think about, which I think many Hollywood films do not.

'Quirky' and Hollywood - Coppola and Anderson

In Coppola’s films The Virgin Suicides, Lost in Translation and Marie Antoinette, themes of troubled adolescence, nostalgia, romance and distanced family relations are present throughout them all. Other aspects which mark her out as an auteur are trendy music, such as the 80s pop soundtrack that accompanies Marie Antoinette; shooting on location – Versaille in Antoinette and Tokyo in Lost in Translation, the pastel colours which are present in all the above movies; and casting the same actors, mainly Kirsten Dunst.

I think in Bree Hoskin’s article on The Virgin Suicides, the observation by A.O Scott that the film looks as though it has been filmed through a layer of gauze is also true of Lost in Translation. Both the films have a certain hazy look about them. In one specific scene in Lost in Translation we see Bob playing golf on a course with a Japanese mountain behind him, the mountain can barely be seen and is very dreamlike. The bright lights of Tokyo are also used to great effect, and the pastel pink colours are evident in Charlotte’s lipstick, the flowers she hangs in her hotel room and the wig she adorns when singing karaoke.

The film also in a way includes Hoskin’s theme of nostalgia, as Bob is an aging movie star who is now doing adverts in Japan to make a living. I think this also can be considered ‘ironic casting’, as this may be an accurate portrayal of Murray’s career today.

This film is hard to categorise into a certain genre. It contains elements of romance and melodrama, but all of these are very subtle. This could also be said of Wes Anderson’s films, such as The Royal Tenebaums and The Darjeeling Limited. Instead of being put into a specific genre, these films have fallen into the category of ‘quirky’. Films which have been deemed quirky may be considered ironic, artier than most mainstream Hollywood and contain actors cast against type. Although quirky is hard to define, this word seems a good fit for the films of Anderson and Coppola.

Melodrama in Brokeback Mountain

Brokeback Mountain was directed by Ang Lee and released in 2005, receiving many award nominations including an Oscar nomination for Best Picture, unusual considering the content of the film. It is set in Wyoming, in America’s Mid-West region. The two main protagonists, Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) both apply to work on ‘Brokeback Mountain’ as sheep herders one summer, and during that time fall in love. They see each other occasionally over many years but both have their own families and cannot be together due to fears over how the society they live in would think or act.

Harry M. Benshoff and Sean Griffin comment that:

It queers traditional concepts of American masculinity and the film genre most closely tied to its representation, the Western. The film powerfully dramatizes the processes and effects of both social and internalizes homophobia, and continually blurs the borders between straight and gay, homosocial and homosexual.

This ties in with Elsaesser’s statement as it names these historical tensions which he names as prominent features of the melodrama. Both Jack and Ennis are very masculine, and work in a masculine profession, which makes the film much more emotional as it is clear that they have a great love for one another, but cannot be together due to circumstances.

I think the use of bleak, minimal music; sparse dialogue and many scenes of characters crying all add to the sense of melodrama. They go well with the vast scenery of the Mid-West which accompanies them. Elsaesser also points out that “the difference of setting and milieu affects the dynamic of the action. In the Western especially, the assumption of ‘open’ spaces is virtually axiomatic.” The huge landscapes depicted in the movie emphasise the emptiness of the characters, highlighting how bleak their lives are as they cannot live the ones they want. Brokeback Mountain is slowly paced and contains many periods where nothing much seems to happen, but it is fair to say that the emotional impact is created through what is not said than that which is.