In 1952, Roald Dahl wrote a short story titled ‘Skin’ in which a man has a masterpiece tattooed on his back, which all collectors want but is worthless as long as he’s alive. In 2006, based on this story, the artist Wim Delvoye, author of works such as ‘Cloaca’ (which transforms food into feces), was based on Dahl’s book to create ‘Tim’, in which he tattooed the back of a man, Tim Steiner, for which a German collector paid $150,000 and literally skinned him after his death. So good.
This story of life imitating art gets a new twist with ‘The man who sold his skin’, a film based on the true event inspired by Dahl’s story. But Kaouther Ben Hania’s work goes beyond the parody of the art world, and tries to explore the belonging to a place, the despair behind an immovable destiny and the drama of Syria. The mixture of all the elements it’s not all uniform which it should be and the ending adds an unnecessary magic trick, but it could have been a great little gem if they had taken the time to polish it more. We tell you why.
The skin that I (don’t) inhabit
‘The man who sold his skin’ it is chaotic because of its own ambition. He refuses to become just another critic of avant-garde art (like ‘The Square’ or ‘Velvet Buzzsaw’) and begins to add more ingredients to enrich the film: it is at once a commentary on refugees, an impossible love story, an account of the drama of the war and, as a bonus, the portrait of a character completely lost in life. too many sticks to touch in a film that did not need to transcend in this way.
The part where it is most successful is where it raises different ethical debates around the world of art and, in particular, the work that Sam Ali has tattooed on his back: a gigantic Schengen visa which, paradoxically, is what has given him the possibility of obtaining a real visa to live in Brussels, to live at full speed and win a fortune. The approach to the work of art and the explanation of it could appear any day on the news, but ‘The man who sold his skin’ goes further: To what extent is it permissible to show a person in a museum as if he were one thing? How is it different from human trafficking? Is humiliation and exposure to the general public valid in exchange for money? What if the canvas says “No”?
From the first bars of the film we recognize Sam Ali, a hustler with a head whose dignity he does not want to question: he is the type of person who would agree to tattoo a work of art in exchange for money and thus be able to escape misery. But as the film progresses, he realizes that his personality (and, therefore, his dignity) falls into the void from the very moment he lends himself to being observed and photographed, without the possibility of Interact with “your” audience. What at first seems like a bargain ends up denying you as a person to the point where claim to be human more than as a work of art it becomes an obsession to fulfill at all costs.
Sam Ali’s vicissitudes as a work of art form the backbone of the film, but he makes a mistake by don’t focus on your oppressive mood. Instead, he offers interludes in which he tries to recover the love of his life, now married to a Syrian president, which, although they make some of the best moments of the film explode, end up being somewhat tedious due to its implausibility: the relationship between the two it seems false, and only advances (in a great scene, everything is said) when the script thinks it’s time to advance it, without an organic evolution. ‘The man who sold his skin’ has more ethical doubts than heart.
a tattoo was made
And if the love story falls short, the comment on the war in Syria is even more trivialreaching a grotesque climax in which the film suddenly breaks its tone and becomes a kind of ‘Now you see me’ that redefines the relationship between author and work but that works neither as a surprise twist nor as a natural end of events.
In its first bars, it seems that ‘The man who sold his skin’ is going to be a story about the injustices to refugees, the attacks on freedom of expression and the repression of an exhausted people, but when he returns to it he does it tangentially: as a framework that surrounds the film, it is weak because it seems that not even the film itself is interested in making this social comment. it is lawfulbut the team would have improved a lot without trying to take the medal, starting after his trip to Lebanon and his attempt to make a living there.
Nor is the commentary on the avant-garde of Western art perfect, although is valid and, at times, intelligent. The film does not end up opting between criticism and parody, leading the viewer to moments of absolute bewilderment in which they do not know whether to laugh, cry or the opposite. It’s not a bad thing per se, and helps create the rarefied atmosphere who becomes the protagonist of the second act, but sometimes it seems more of a bungling of the film than a deliberately intended tone.
The man who filmed his skin
Eliminating the problems that we may have with its convulsive plot, On a technical level, it’s a great movie.. This is the second film by Tunisian Kaouther Ben Hania, and he already knows how to take advantage of spaces like a true veteran. The traveling shots that follow Sam Ali through the museum perfectly portray the character’s state of mind, in the same way that the approaches with which he plays in the exhibition itself are as suffocating as successful.
Ben Hania picks up ‘The Man Who Sold His Skin’ and carries her far beyond of what your script makes you foresee. In fact, it is not surprising that this was the only film in the history of Tunisia chosen by the Oscars to participate in the Best International Film category last year, although, as we all know, it was ‘Another round’ that won the day. Or, rather, to beer.
Sam Ali is brilliantly performed by Yahya Mahayni, an actor who has ties to Spain (he studied Law at the University of Granada) and who took home the award for best actor in Venice in the Horizontes section, although he could very well have defended an Oscar nomination with the head held high. His performance is so portentous that he even manages to evade our eyes from the big star of the show, Monica Bellucci, in a secondary role in which he fulfills perfectly.
In short
‘The man who sold his skin’ is a film that functions as a critic of the world of contemporary art and portrait of a person who feels his lost dignity, but who is lost in a sea of subplots that water down his achievements. Regardless, it’s worth seeing the wonderful performance of its cast and a bomb-proof address. Perfect to think things twice before entering a museum of modern art.