Trau­ma and cathar­sis in Gregg Araki’s Mys­te­ri­ous Skin

Trau­ma nev­er tru­ly leaves you. It shapes the choic­es you make, the peo­ple you love, the way you cope. Gregg Araki’s Mys­te­ri­ous Skin is about dif­fer­ent cop­ing mech­a­nisms – accep­tance and denial – viewed through the lens of two men who were abused as children.

Through­out human his­to­ry, men have been taught how not to feel, to con­tain them­selves with­in a bub­ble of apa­thy in order to appear more mas­cu­line. Many men who have expe­ri­enced trau­ma end up dis­tanc­ing them­selves from their own feel­ings and loved ones. Exist­ing or poten­tial con­nec­tion can be sab­o­taged by the anx­i­ety that they’ll be judged for not heal­ing imme­di­ate­ly, for not being enough of a man. This film is proof that repres­sion is infe­ri­or to con­nec­tion in help­ing peo­ple cope with their pain. It’s nev­er as sim­ple as get­ting over it.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Neil remem­bers every­thing that hap­pened the night he was assault­ed. He has sur­vived but is hang­ing by a thread, try­ing to force him­self into a real­i­ty where he is com­plete. He is queer, engag­ing with old­er men for finan­cial and sex­u­al grat­i­fi­ca­tion, try­ing to rede­fine his own sex­u­al­i­ty. His body is almost mal­nour­ished, his tor­so is slim and hard­ened. No traces of fat or mus­cle, just the marks of sex and pover­ty. Ara­ki shows the every­day ago­nies of exist­ing as queer and deal­ing with trau­ma in an apa­thet­ic world.

Neil is assault­ed again and noth­ing in his past allows him to escape that real­i­ty. He can­not alter the actions of oth­er peo­ple. Mas­culin­i­ty can be a prison for peo­ple like Neil, lan­guish­ing over the image of what a man is sup­posed to be. How­ev­er, he refus­es to become some­thing he isn’t. Being abused doesn’t change the fact that he’s gay and the fear of it hap­pen­ing again doesn’t stop him from try­ing to become him­self. Gordon-Levitt’s per­for­mance is beau­ti­ful in how it cap­tures numb­ness, the accep­tance of pain but the repres­sion of feel­ing is recog­nis­able and pro­found­ly moving.

Bri­an is soft­er than Neil, emo­tion­al­ly and phys­i­cal­ly. His body is a lit­tle larg­er, the frame of some­one who doesn’t have to wor­ry about his next meal. He is kind and sin­cere about every­thing he does, almost unas­sum­ing of the tragedies around him. Brady Cor­bet plays him like a child in a grown man’s body, filled with a warmth that radi­ates from the screen. Bri­an is obsessed with the moments in his child­hood where his mem­o­ries fad­ed. Aliens are his jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for these miss­ing frag­ments of time.

Bri­an is obses­sive and hyper-fix­at­ed on the belief that he was abduct­ed as a child and came back for a rea­son. He devotes him­self to search­ing for every scrap of proof, even mak­ing a con­nec­tion with anoth­er obsessed woman. Two peo­ple look­ing for a greater pur­pose. Ara­ki nev­er films these sit­u­a­tions judg­men­tal­ly – there’s no mock­ery of Brian’s rejec­tion of real­i­ty. It is sin­cere­ly empa­thet­ic and allows us to believe that maybe every­thing was okay, that he wasn’t hurt. The sad truth is that Bri­an is just like Neil, a boy hurt in ways no one should ever be.

Neil’s arc is real­i­sa­tion that he can help some­one else with their pain, Brian’s arc is accept­ing that he is a vic­tim. In the final scene, both men go back to the build­ing where they were abused and remem­ber what hap­pened. Tears fall down their cheeks, Neil holds Bri­an tight­ly so that he knows that it won’t be like that dark night again, that he’s not going to be that vul­ner­a­ble lit­tle boy any­more. They’ve final­ly found some­one else who understands.

The inti­ma­cy they share is over­whelm­ing and Araki’s com­pas­sion comes through in the fram­ing. There is nev­er a sense of emo­tion­al exploita­tion from his cam­era, no sen­sa­tion­alised close-ups or a grandiose orches­tral score. It is sim­ple, focused on the lit­tle nuances of their inter­ac­tion such as Neil’s hands graz­ing Brian’s side to try and com­fort. Just two bod­ies unit­ed togeth­er out of a need for love, with none of Araki’s visu­al exces­sive­ness. All that remains is the cathar­sis from know­ing some­one will be next to you through everything.

The film cuts back and forth between their recount­ing of trau­ma to snip­pets of that night. There is no detailed sequence of sex­u­al assault, just impli­ca­tion and the faces of their younger selves with the man that hurt them. It is qui­et, all about the brav­ery of their words and the emo­tions spilling out of them. As soon as they’re done reflect­ing, they hear music. Christ­mas car­ols out­side singing beau­ti­ful melodies. Neil’s voice whis­pers, ​“I wished with all my heart that we could just leave this world behind, rise like two angels in the night and mag­i­cal­ly dis­ap­pear,” as the music wash­es over every­thing and the frame fades to black.

Trau­ma fes­ters in the recipient’s bones, feeds on their loathing and fear. Despite this, there is beau­ty all around us – we have to fight so we can keep feel­ing it. There will always be some­one who loves you.