Nik McGrath
Still of Marina de Van as Esther, In My Skin (2002)
Marina de Van wrote, starred and directed Dans ma Peau, English title In My Skin, in 2002. A film from the New French Extremity movement, the body horror in this film will make your stomach do backflips. In case you didn’t see the trigger warning on the event page, there are disturbing scenes of self-harm which may be upsetting for some viewers.
In an article entitled “Flesh & blood: sex and violence in recent French Cinema” published in ArtForum in February 2004, ‘New French Extremity’ was first described as, quote “...a cinema suddenly determined to break every taboo, to wade in rivers of viscera and spumes of sperm, to fill each frame with flesh, nubile or gnarled, and subject it to all manner of penetration, mutilation, and defilement”. In My Skin is included in the article as an example of New French Extremity, compared to other films with, quote “extreme vision of women driven to limits of compulsion, sexuality, or violence in their rejection of a world that attempts to constrain or degrade them”. I think In My Skin, 18 years on, is a film just as relevant for contemporary audiences, because it explores the relationship a woman has with her body, something women of all ages and eras can relate.
Still of Béatrice Dalle as Coré, Trouble Every Day (2001)
I chose to screen In My Skin this evening to celebrate Women in Horror Month because it was a stand out film amongst 31 films directed by women that I watched for 31 Days of Horror. The list of films are on the Melbourne Horror Film Society website, if you would like to check them out. Amongst the other 31 films I watched another New French Extremity, a visceral film with little dialogue, Trouble Every Day came out a year before In My Skin, in 2001, directed by Claire Denis. The victims are mostly male, lured for sex to a violent death by a woman who appears to be addicted to sex and blood lust. Trouble Every Day didn’t do well at the box office, perhaps because of one particularly disturbing rape and murder scene, and because the story unfolds sometimes confusingly at a slow pace. Personally I enjoyed the pace of the film, and the gorgeous cinematography. This is a sexy and at times disturbing film. Similarly, In My Skin is erotic in it’s potryal of blood lust and body parts, however the pleasure the heroine receives is from self-inflicted pain rather than inflicting pain on others.
Still of Marina de Van as Esther, In My Skin (2002)
Have you ever picked a scab off and watched the blood trickle down your skin? In My Skin is a film about the morbid fascination Esther, played by Marina, has with her body. The imagery in this film is powerful. Some of the most disturbing scenes are when Esther is alone. When she becomes so obsessed by an injury to her leg, that she cannot stop making herself bleed.
De Van was asked in an interview if her film is about teenage girls and self-harm. De Van was offended stating the film is not about a teenager, it’s about a woman, and it’s not about self-harm. She wrote In My Skin to ask, quote - “Does this body really belong to me?”; and “what is my relation with it?”
Self-portrait, Herbert Bayer, 1932 / Souce: Tate
There is a surreal scene of Esther out to dinner with clients from her work. Esther’s lost control of her hand which keeps messing about with the food on her plate. Then an extremely surreal moment when Esther looks down at the table and her arm is disconnected from her body. This shot made me think of a black and white photograph by Herbert Bayer taken in 1932, a Self-portrait, where the photographer looks in a mirror at his reflection holding a piece of his arm, thus leaving his other arm hovering and disconnected.
Still of Esther’s detached arm, In My Skin (2002)
Esther’s clients and her colleague from work do not seem to notice Esther’s distress or see what she sees, i.e. her arm disconnected from her body lying on the table. The scene is almost dream-like, if you’ve ever had a dream when you feel out of control of your body, exposed, embarrassed, and open to ridicule. Have you ever felt disconnected, almost like you’re having an out of body experience? Have you ever felt disconnected from yourself when talking to a group of people? I certainly felt empathy for Esther and her struggles with conforming in society.
Still of Sophie Marceau as Jeanne and Monica Bellucci as Jeanne/Rosa Maria, Don’t Look Back (2009)
From 1993 to 1996 de Van studied cinema at FEMIS in Paris, one of the top international film schools. Before directing her first feature, In My Skin, de Van made six short films, and worked as an actor and writer. Throughout her career, she has continued to direct shorts and feature films, and worked as a writer and actor. The next feature she directed following In My Skin, was Don’t Look Back in 2009 starring Sophie Marceau and Monica Bellucci. A horror film about a woman whose body begins to transform into someone else. An idea created by de Van and co-written with Jacques Akchoti. Feeling alienated from her body is a theme throughout her work.
Still of Missy Keating as Niamh, Dark Touch (2013)
In 2013 de Van wrote and directed her next horror feature, Dark Touch, set in Ireland about a young girl who makes objects move when she cries. The girl’s parents and baby brother are massacred, but nobody suspects the girl. De Van writes strong female characters, breaking stereotypes, telling stories about girls and women who are complex, flawed, and capable of harming themselves and others in brutal ways.
Still of Marina de Van, My Nudity Means Nothing (2019)
My Nudity Means Nothing is her latest work in which she wrote, directed and starred, a feature film released in 2019 and screened at the Sydney Film Festival. Lines are blurred between truth and fiction in a self-portrait in which de Van answers her own questions about self-image in a digital age while sitting at home naked and emotionally exposed.
REFERENCES
Media Funhouse 2003, Interview with Marina de Van on her film “In My Skin”, https://youtu.be/tcV1vfrrOec
Quandt, J 2004, ‘Flesh and blood: sex and violence in recent French cinema’, ArtForum, https://web.archive.org/web/20040810004736/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_6_42/ai_113389507
Sydney Film Festival 2019, My Nudity Means Nothing, https://www.sff.org.au/program/browse/my-nudity-means-nothing