The only flaw that I can find in the movie ‘Skin‘ made by Guy Nattiv is the impression of deja-vu. Indeed, viewers who have watched Tony Kaye‘s ‘American History X‘ staring Edward Norton will not be able to notice that this is a very similar story. Here as well as there, a young neo-Nazi skinhead who seems corrupt in racism and violence beyond any chance of salvation begins to understand the harm and horror of the ideology to which he dedicated his life and tries to quit evil. The renunciation is not easy, both because of his personal crisis and because of the violent attempts of the milieu in which he lived to keep him inside. The fact that 20 years after Tony Kaye‘s movie ‘Skin‘ seems more actual than ever tells a lot about the evolution or involution of American society in this period. Israeli-born Guy Nattiv makes a very American film which dissects without any hesitation an infected sector of American society. It is a hard and realistic film coming close to the point of pain, that gives a replica on the same level as Kaye‘s classic movie.
Bryon Widner (played by Jamie Bell) ideologically lives in the parallel and violent universe of a band of white supremacist extremists led by a pair of charismatic preacher-politicians who use drugs, tattoos, and populist-racist language to lure youngsters fallen into poverty or moral crisis. The targets of their attacks are all those that do not correspond to the supremacist model of a white and Christian America, and their actions take the form of terrorist violence. Bryon has the chance to meet Julie (Danielle Macdonald), a woman who had lived through similar experiences in her family, a single mother who has pains to grow up her three daughters. The relationship with Julie gives Bryon the moral and sentimental motivation for recovery. Departing from the vicious environment in which he lives will not be easy, his criminal acts leaving him with no alternative of neutrality.
I found the acting performances to be special. It is primarily the holders of the two lead roles, but also those around, such as Bill Camp and Louisa Krause in the roles of the leaders of the extremist group, or the actresses who play the roles of the three girls. Their task was made even more difficult by the style of the film – a docu-drama that brings to the screen a violent and uncomfortable reality – which required from everyone both physically and psychologically efforts. The that gives the film’s title is a double-faced symbol. The skin is what separates people into conflicting categories in the view of the supremacists. However, the crypto-Nazi tattoos on the hero’s skin are also a symbol of his adherence to a poisonous ideology. In order to save himself as a human being, he must get rid of these signs that set him apart from the rest of humanity, and the physical pain he is forced to endure mirrors the moral purgatory traversed by his soul. ‘Skin‘ is a tough and realistic film about the extremes in mid-America today.