The events of our childhood often shape the rest of our lives, whether we embrace our experiences or run from them: re-examining the past can be painful, exhilarating, or both. Gregg Araki's Mysterious Skin examines how one experience affects two boys and how they ultimately acquiesce. The boys, Neil McCormick and Brian Lackey—played as adults by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Brady Corbet—have grown up in the same small Kansas town, but their lives are phenomenally different. At the center of the film lies an understanding that sexuality comes in many forms, and none is without its mysteries and traumas.
Neil's disposition could hardly be called sunny; his best friend Wendy (Michelle Trachtenberg) describes him as having a black hole where his heart should be. His demeanor stems from the summer he was sexually awakened, at age 8, by his Little League baseball coach (Bill Sage). Neil goes through life unfeelingly because he's searching for someone to give him the same acceptance. As Neil comes to idealize this relationship, Araki challenges the viewer to confront the morally appalling (and humanly possible) idea that for Neil the encounter may have had positive repercussions. The director bathes each scene in the coach's house in a soft yellow glow, exhibiting reverence instead of condemnation: it's difficult to remember how repulsive such a relationship should be, when it's the only thing Neil shows any emotion about.
Brian's life, by contrast, is quiet and uneventful. He's consumed by the notion that as a child (again, at age 8) he was abducted by aliens. After rain began to fall at a Little League game, he claims to have been taken and examined by aliens who then deposited him in the cellar at home five hours later, scared and bleeding from his nose. Successive blackouts and bad dreams leave him with the same nosebleed, though he often comes a few steps closer to the frightening truth. As Brian tries to discover the truth about those five hours, he provides a touchingly geeky, awkward counterpoint to Neil's frigid nonchalance.
The acting throughout is exceptional. As the coach, Sage creates a very charismatic and lasting presence despite having only six minutes of screen time: it's easy to see how his almost unconditional love for Neil sends ripples of confusion through the boy's life. His specter hangs over the entire film, shaping the futures of both Neil and Brian. As Neil, Gordon-Levitt wavers between accurately presenting a hardened, psychologically scarred teen and simply seeming to not act at all, while Corbet does well as Brian, especially with the fear and uncertainty about his supposed abduction. The movie leads to a tragic and beautiful final scene that echoes the Pieta as Neil cradles Brian in his lap.
Mysterious Skin received an NC-17 from the MPAA for a variety of reasons. As with 2004's Bad Education, though, the rating may have more to do with the movie's unconventional considerations of sexuality than anything else. Araki—who adapted the screenplay with the original book's author, Scott Heim—dares to present to the good with the bad; Neil's fond memories appear side-by-side with Brian's painful ones. This isn't a NAMBLA advocacy film, but it does attempt to present the conflicting emotions that abuse can create. The film opens with a pure-white screen and ends with a completely black one—underscoring its existence in the muddy grays between.
(Mysterious Skin plays through Thursday at the Belcourt.)
