Viggo Mortensen Movie:

The Reflecting Skin Reviews:
Best abuse film this abuse specialist has ever seen
2009-10-19 - As a psychologist who has worked with child abuse victims and their families for over 30 years, and as a survivor of horrific child abuse myself, I would say that The Reflecting Skin is the most psychologically accurate depiction of child abuse that I've ever seen. And certainly the most uncompromising in terms of not romanticizing the victim. In The Reflecting Skin--SPOILER ALERT--the central victim is an 8-year-old farm boy, who is traumatized at one time or another by nearly everyone in his life. His mother, Ruth, rejects him and punishes him with water poisoning. His father, Luke, commits suicide in front of him. A depressed young widow, Dolphin Blue, terrorizes him with details of her husband's suicide and remnants of his corpse she has saved in a cigar box. Even his beloved older brother, Cameron, who himself is a victim of both his mother's incestuous advances and the US military's atomic testing program in the Pacific, is sometimes physically and emotionally abusive towards him--at one point showing him the photo of a Hiroshima baby with "reflecting skin," from which the film takes its names. But unlike the usual tearjerker Hollywood movie about child abuse, Seth is no more an "innocent angel" than is his brother or his father or his friends who get murdered. At the point we meet Seth running through a Van Gogh-colored field with a huge toad in his hands, he is already turning into the next generation of abuser--happily blowing up that toad with air the same way his mother blows him up with water. And he manages to retaliate against one of the adult abusers in his environment, Dolphin Blue, in the process. But he doesn't mean to kill her. Yet that is where his silence about the gang of serial killers he sees roaming the country roads in a black Caddy finally leads. That is the realization that finally shatters him. But what alternative to silence does he have? The best chance he has of stopping the killers is when Sheriff Ticker tries to force him into spilling his secrets. Yet the sheriff is so verbally abusive to Seth--even to the point of threatening to split Seth's head open to get the truth out of him--that Seth freezes and says nothing. Like most abused kids Seth believes that he's entirely on his own. And to judge from all the negative reviews of this film he has reason to feel that no one will understand him and know how to help him. Because of all the abuse he's already internalized at the point the film begins, he is no more lovable as a victim than the mummified fetus he tries to make his friend.


A Darkly Beautiful Masterpiece
2009-06-26 - Preamble: My review - one of the first on Amazon for this film - somehow got bumped out of here without my taking notice of it. Here is my original review from 1998 (typos removed and slightly edited to notice the number of reviews in the ensuing years).

The Reflecting Skin is clearly not a movie everyone will like. It requires dismissing all notions of what a movie "should be" - and going along for a fascinating ride filled with images that will burn themselves into your brain for a long time to come. Director Philip Ridley has assembled a remarkable cast who grasp their tough assignments and execute them with near zombie-like aloofness. The tragic characters populating his film are completely believable - but in that surreal, almost unnatural way that Shakespeare or Brecht's characters are also believable.

Like life itself, nothing in this tale is ever fully clear here and Ridley seems to be obsessed with symbolism and yet his symbols remain somehow beautifully ambiguous, capable of more than one - or possibly no meaning whatsoever. Any resolutions (or lack thereof) punctuating the story will prove to be frustrating and unsatisfying for those requiring challenging moments to be wrapped up as neat little packages explaining everything for them. Conversely, for anyone who loves to explore the myriad possibilities Ridley has opened up for us, The Reflecting Skin will be a dark, disturbing, sometimes comic and unfailingly beautiful film experience. The cinematography is never less than stunning - the images recalling Wyeth and at several points van Gough, it seems to me each frame of this film is a work of art in itself, and collectively the experience is overwhelming and memorable.

I've been surprised (though shouldn't be) to read how many found this movie to be boring, as everyone I've shown this film to has been riveted by it from start to finish. Let's examine its characters (minor spoilers here, but not really):

Seth Dove, a troubled and abused [...] growing up on a farm possessing a penchant for "exploding frogs" and an overactive, dark imagination. From that imagination springs his own, disturbing answers to life's troubling questions, uncensored and unfiltered. A child you want to love, yet fearful of.

Cameron, Seth's older brother, physically and mentally affected by military nuclear testing on the Bikini Islands from where he's just returned, damaged and very changed.

Then there is Mom; demented, abusive and utterly miserable, the sort of woman whose daily existence goes nearly unnoticed, save for her torment and tormenting.

The father; a gentle, sad and tortured soul, destroyed by a long ago indiscretion from which no one seems capable of forgiving him. This sad sack finds escape only in pulp vampire novels (part of a rich symbolic motif woven through the entire film).

There is Dolphin Blue, the sad widowed neighbor - a lonely displaced British woman brought to the American heartland by her husband. Seth is convinced she is in reality a murderer, a 200 year old vampire feeding off his beloved brother.

A gorgeous, black 1950's Cadillac Fleetwood which continually roams the countryside. She is filled with handsome, dangerously mysterious young men who glide in and out of the story like ghosts of the imagination.

There is the sheriff, self-righteous and bizarre. He is simultaneously hilarious and terrifying, a buffoon and false villain" a divertissement who, while scarier than any other character in the story ultimately matters little to it.

We have another neighbor, a crazed lunatic whose insanity is comically fueled by alcohol, grief and disturbing dreams of bestiality.

Oh yeah, and then there's the "angel." A character I'll be haunted by whenever I think of this film.

While all of the performances are excellent, the central trio of Lindsay Duncan (Dolphin Blue), Viggo Mortensen (Cameron Dove) and most of all, young Jeremy Cooper (Seth Dove) are positively spellbinding.

The Reflecting Skin is a true masterpiece of filmmaking; a foreigner's haunting interpretation of American gothic both surrealistically visionary yet somehow wonderfully true. I know how this must sound, but it's precisely what I mean. See it and decide for yourself.


Tormenting
2008-11-10 - This is one of those films that sticks with you like a fever dream. Essential viewing at least once.

definitely lynch-like... loved it
2008-03-11 - I have been watching The Reflecting Skin for over 10 years now. I first saw it on a whim back in 1999 with a group of friends. We rented it at the video store because it said "If you like David Lynch, then you'll like..." If you have seen this movie, you will understand when I say that it has become a cult favorite among my friends. I found this cool blog that I have been following (http://thereflectingskin.wordpress.com/). You'll find that you need a forum to discuss this film once watching it.

I gave it 5 stars because of the "strangeness" factor. I love surprises, and The Reflecting Skin does not disappoint.

surreal film
2007-03-21 - This film is not scary and I don't think it is meant to be. The soundtrack is eerie the location foreboding....The whole thing seems like a bad dream but not a nightmare....
Whats with the clucking twins? Now thats creepy!!!