Michelle Trachtenberg

Gregg Araki: ’Mysterious Skin’

Margaret Pomeranz talks to director Gregg Araki, local Australian film distributors and Melbourne Film Festival director about the controversial new film ’Mysterious Skin’.

Watch the Margaret Pomeranz interview (Requires RealPlayer):

* Hifi video

* Lofi video

Margaret: It’s been a long time between films for the American director Gregg Araki. His latest, ’Mysterious Skin’, deals with the sensitive subject matter of child sexual abuse. I talked to the director and some people who may be key to the film being shown in Australia.

GREGG ARAKI: It’s about a subject that’s very dark and a sort of taboo subject. But I think that it also, it is very, it’s told in a very sort of poetic and sort of beautiful language that kind of transcends its subject matter. And I don’t think that it has, I know that when we were working with the script, it’s almost like the script was more disturbing than the movie, because the aesthetic surface of the film is so lush and kind of rich and beautiful that one of the actors, Joe Gordon-Levett, was saying he’s all, "I could just watch it over and over again "because it’s just like a dream." Like, it has this kind of dreamy, sort of elegant kind of quality to it. And I think that that, for me at least, make, softens the sort of harder, the tougher scenes in the movie.

RICHARD PAYTON: I think it’s a tough film but I’m here as a buyer for Dendy Films so I’m looking at it from a commercial point of view and not from a festival point of view. And for commercial terms, I just think it’s too tough.

JAMES HEWISON: I’m sure there will be many people that will suggest that this film has no moral centre, therefore that it’s amoral. Immoral, I’m sure, is also a word that will be used to bang around the head of the film. And I think it is curious to see a film that is so steeped in middle America in a place such as Venice because, of course, the reactions to the film, as you say, have been divided. And it’s interesting that most of the people that don’t seem to like the film happen to be Anglo-Saxons. And I think it’s that sense of, for them, probably, a kind of a wayward morality that I don’t feel is the film at all. It’s a complete misrepresentation and misreading of the film, actually.

TROY LUM: Part of our distribution is about being brave. And I don’t think that we shy away from doing films that are very provocative. But I think when you’re talking about paedophilia, it’s a, it’s a hard subject to defend. You can defend a movie on artistic grounds quite easily, but the subject matter of paedophilia is a really hard subject to defend to the greater population. And it’s about being willing to defend it - the film - on an artistic basis and hope that people will see it even despite the subject matter. Because no-one’s going to see the film because "I want to see a film about paedophilia." And in fact I’ve had direct experience with ’Happiness’, because it was a film I released back in ’99, and it was extraordinarily difficult to convey a message about the film. And I think in distribution what you’re always trying to do is position a movie to convey a message to the audience. Now, if part of that message you need to somehow not hide, but not talk about openly, then I think that’s a very difficult position to be in as a businessperson. But I wouldn’t discount doing ’Mysterious Skin’ for all those reasons, as I’ve just said, really.