Mysterious Skin

The other day, I was reading an article about the Jerry Sandusky trial. The article went in to great detail about the testimony of a couple of the victims. I thought some of the details should have been omitted. I discussed the article with someone and they had a completely different opinion. While I was asking, “What good is it to repeat the graphic details?” they were asking, “What good is it to sugar coat what happened?” We couldn’t reach an agreement, but it did make me think more about my position. I wanted the details to stay in the court room because I’m an empathizer. I didn’t just read the details and see it as facts of the case. I read the details and pictured the scenarios in my head. I imagined how the child must have felt, especially the one who said he screamed for help but no one came. I’m not the type of person who can read about something like that and not be affected. I can admit that I don’t like hearing the descriptions of the abuse because it makes me feel too much. When I hear an overview of the case, such as two victims testified or something like that, I don’t feel anything; it’s just another news story. But when I can picture it in my head and associate emotions with it, the case becomes much more.

After accepting that the problem was with me and not the article, I remembered a movie that someone told me about a few years ago. They made the movie sound so traumatizing that I didn’t want to see it. I finally felt ready to watch it. I looked for it and was surprised to find the full length movie on YouTube. 

Mysterious Skin is a disturbing movie. It delves in to the intricacies of sexual abuse with little regard for people like me who have difficulty dealing with the topic. Yet, even I was unable to look away from the movie. I wanted to reach through the computer and rescue Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character from himself. 

The imdb description of the movie reads: A teenage hustler and a young man obsessed with alien abductions cross paths, together discovering a horrible, liberating truth. The movie has an NC-17 rating. If you watch it, you will definitely understand why. I found an old review of Mysterious Skin from Roger Ebert. In the review Ebert acknowledges that the movie “is at once the most harrowing and, strangely, the most touching film I have seen about child abuse. It is unflinching in its tough realism; although there is no graphic sex on the screen, what is suggested, and the violence sometimes surrounding it, is painful and unsentimental.” I couldn’t have said it better myself. 

This movie isn’t for everyone. Please only watch the movie if you think you can handle it.