I hate it when I see a flick and can't decide if I liked it or not. I start second guessing my own opinions and become uncertain of myself and soon my nice, well-structured personal reality collapses in on itself until I decide to go to sleep and forget there was any kind of internal schism there to begin with.

This happened to me after watching 1990's The Reflecting Skin, a very depressing, existentialist horror movie. Not like the glut of feel-good existentialist films that have been crowding the marketplace, mind you. Setting the tone nicely is the opening scene, in which wee Seth Dove (Jeremy Cooper) and his two friends take a live frog, put a straw up its anus and blow into it until it's inflated like a balloon. They leave the froggie in the road until the creepy neighbor lady (Lindsay Duncan) happens upon it, at which point they slingshot a rock at the poor animal and it explodes, spraying blood all over the horrified woman.

At this point, I should say that I'm going to mention things that will partially give away key scenes in the film because I think they're worth discussing. So if you found that description of the opening intriguing, you can skip to the last paragraph and experience Reflecting for yourself.

Now, Seth isn't really a bad kid. He's just your average boy trapped in rural, 1950's America with parents who are weak in spirit at best and abusive at their worst. So Seth tries to stay out of their hair by traversing through the cornfields with his pals and spying on that creepy lady living next door, the lonely and morose Dolphin Blue. On one occasion, Dolphin tells Seth that she is 200 years old, tearfully recalls memories of her dead husband, and then gives Seth a harpoon gun as a gift. On another, Seth and his friends sneak into her house, trash her bedroom upstairs, and then catch her masturbating in the living room. That final scene is about as unnerving as it sounds.

In the meantime, a black car full of mysterious out-of-towners makes its way into the local area and soon one of Seth's friends disappears and his lifeless body is found on the land where Seth's family resides. Because of some past indiscretions, Seth's father draws the attention of the police. With the pressure being too much to bear, his father eventually ends it all by setting himself on fire right in front of Seth. With this kind of perpetual despair and anguish being piled on a boy his age, it comes as no surprise when Seth begins to disassociate himself from reality by developing irrational ideas such as suspecting Dolphin Blue of being a vampire. Or by convincing himself that the corpse of a human fetus buried in his hideaway shack is the angel of his dead friend.

The Reflecting Skin plays fair with its own set of rules. It doesn't try to cop out, giving us some kind of incongruous resolution to save the characters and please a wider audience the way a Hollywood film would inevitably have to (of course, Hollywood movies wouldn't have touched some of the material in the summary above to begin with). Everything is setup in the first 20 minutes or so and left to plummet into the undeniable abyss.

The characters are all either flawed as human beings in some way or else they're walking quirks. Seth's older brother, Cameron (Viggo Mortensen, Aragorn from the upcoming Lord Of The Rings films), would be one of the former. He returns home from military service shortly after his father's suicide and tries to find solace in the arms of Dolphin Blue, who isn't the most stable person. An example of the latter would be Sheriff Ticker (Robert Koons). While interrogating Seth about the disappearances, Ticker explains how his own ear was mauled by a dog and how his hand was mangled by a snapping turtle and then sort of fades away from the story.

The really interesting thing about The Reflecting Skin is the black car and the outsiders inside it. Using my meager analysis skills, I've come to the belief that the car and its occupants represent Death itself. They're portrayed literally as child molesters and murderers but there's an allegory here. When Seth sees the occupants grab one of his friends off the street right in front of his eyes, he does nothing to stop them and tells no one. In a literal sense, this looks like strong apathy but I believe his response is the result of simply knowing that he can't stop Death. The rural fields where Seth lives is the world and the car comes from outside it, able to prey on the local inhabitants seemingly without restraint in the same way Death preys on every living thing. In one of the last scenes, the driver of the car pulls up next to Seth and Dolphin on the road. Dolphin gets into the car because she wants to "leave town" but when the driver asks Seth if he wants a ride, he simply answers "No. Not yet." Seth knows it's not his time to die and the men in the car don't force him to go along as Death only takes people at the appointed time. You can guess Dolphin's fate at this point. Finally, the tagline of the film is "Sometimes terrible things happen quite naturally". The horrible things that happen around Seth are meant to evoke Death, which is a natural thing, but not murder or suicide, which are the result of human intent and not direct manifestations of nature.

The scenery in the film provides an ironic contrast to the story itself. The Reflecting Skin manages to make the blue skies and grassy plains of rural America look as brilliant as most people could imagine just as the occurrences there in the script will repulse the same individuals. I guess that explains the title of the flick. You get beneath the pleasant surface flesh and into the disgusting, wet, innards that are what really makes everything tick. Funny that this was all filmed in Canada. Or maybe the story actually takes place in 1950's Canada. I'm not sure. My texts on life in 1950's Canadian farmlands got lost somewhere. The music by Nick Bicât is heavy on the string section, welling up when it needs to and dispersing at the right moments. It's a very good soundtrack, matching the visual beauty of the locations.

The acting is fine but there's one point in particular where Seth's actor doesn't quite get away with pulling off what director Philip Ridley (The Passion of Darkly Noon) wants him to and, unfortunately, that scene is the cry of existential angst at the end of the movie. It requires a real emotional outburst from Jeremy Cooper but it's not something most 10 year-old actors could do convincingly. The point comes across but the delivery isn't what it needed to be.

So what I'm trying to say here is that The Reflecting Skin is unpleasant but it's the rare film that's compellingly unpleasant. It does what it does extremely well. So do I like it or do I hate it? I still don't know. Many will be turned off and more cynical types will probably find it all laughable. But something about it drew me in. How do I sum this all up? The bleak last monologue by Dolphin Blue would do it but that's a bit too long to include here. Another good choice would be near the end, when Cameron Dove is sitting on the porch. He looks to his younger brother with annoyance and asks him "Why don't you play with your friends?" Seth looks back at him and responds, "They're all dead." Touché, Seth. Touché.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Good Date Movie