Those crazy Frenches, man. What kinda fucked-up hoopla are they gonna be up to next? If they ain't drinking from a glass containing a used tampon like in Anatomy Of Hell, or crushing the hell outta a fella's face in Irreversible, then they're getting up to no end of self-mutilation and self-desecration, like in this right here, being Marina De Van's Dans Ma Peau, or In My Skin.
What In My Skin concerns itself with, is the intentional harming of oneself. Not in the kinda TV Movie Of The Week fashion, were it's all about I'm depressed and so I cut chunks off of my arm and then a spell in a hospital and all's well in time for the news. This is more along the lines of, wow, I like the feeling I got just now when I cut my leg. Best do it again over and over, and then eat bits that I cut off, and then get orgasmic pleasure from letting my blood drip over my face.
That's the kinda scenario In My Skin wants to be dealing with. It's both body-horror in the Cronenberg mould, reminiscent especially of the likes of Rabid, and addiction tragedy. Except it never makes it overly clear where the tragedy lies.
What occurs is that writer / director Marina De Van, whom you may remember from earlier French treats like Sitcom, casts herself as Esther, a woman who, after accidentally wounding her leg amidst some trash of some sort, starts to get obsessed with her flesh, and more importantly, the thrill of sticking things into it.
What it makes for is a brilliant piece of work that never sensationalises its subject matter, but, perhaps more worryingly, fetishises it throughout. Is this fetishisation irresponsible, to suggest that horrific actions like those depicted herein lead to unbridled sexual ecstasy? It does for Esther, and that right there is maybe validation enough.
Since when was art ever responsible, anyhow? Have you seen that moustache Dali had hanging from his face? How irresponsible was that shit? Fucking disgraceful, is what, but he did that painting with the clocks melting over a tree, so you can shove your moustache criticisms up your asshole, most likely.
In My Skin is a disturbing hour and a half, no doubt about it, but you'd be wrong if you assumed it to be some unwatchable, mournful dirge. What it is, is bursting at the corners of the frame with cinematic invention and crackling with scenes alive with delirious, surreal abandon.
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