Film Review: The Reflecting Skin
1990′s The Reflecting Skin, directed by Philip Ridley, is a weird movie and rather obscure. It’s very interesting, and quiet, bizarre, grotesque, over-the-top, and terribly beautiful, all at once. Visually, it’s amazing. The cinematography is gorgeous, very unforgettable. It has such atmosphere… Eerie, chilling, ominous, cryptic, ascetic yet lush. Admittedly some of the acting is just god-awful (especially the child actors!), but the movie overall is kind of brilliant. Destined to be thought terrible and intolerable by many, I loved it. It is quite possibly the movie that most embodies an “American Gothic” quality/aesthetic, a haunting sense of desolation and hopelessness, mirrored by the land, and a hypocritical, unforgiving puritanism.
Taking place in rural America in the 1950s (whose landscape of yellow wheat fields and desolate, isolated, gray wood frame houses standing in the midst of them is shot very impressively and gorgeously), The Reflecting Skin is, sort of, about child abuse, innocence, imagination, death, mortality, and love. The main character is a young boy named Seth Dove who creates an elaborate fantasy around a mysterious, otherworldly-seeming English widow who lives nearby, believing her to be a vampire who is preying on his loved ones. I suppose it’s partly about the unimaginable innocence of youth… Instead of registering and owning a sense of evil in the world, Seth displaces it onto this mysterious figure, a source of external, supernatural evil, thus allowing him not to understand these strange, horrific, traumatic events around him.
The “vampire,” pale, regal, and obsessive, is such a strange, lovely, macabre, spectral, enigmatic character, with the most absolutely haunting speeches, remote yet intense, vehement, and unnerving meditations on aging and love. Icily menacing yet alluring, preternaturally quiet with sudden outbursts of piercing, violent, grotesque, deeply primal, forlorn emotion, mercurial as a madwoman, she was played pretty much to perfection by Lindsay Duncan. She should be an iconic figure, in my opinion.
This movie is fascinating, and even if you end up not liking it, you should definitely see it. The cinematography alone is worth it.
The entirety of the film (from the Japanese DVD) is up on YouTube.
Tags: 1950s, abuse, bizarre, children, cryptic, dark, film reviews, fragility, hauntingly beautiful, innocence, innocence/menace, macabre, metaphors, puritanical, religion, sexuality, strange beauty, surreal, surreal horror, trailers, vampires, visceral, witchy
Akino Kondoh
{Akino Kondoh‘s sketches and drawings for her short animations}
Beautiful.
Tags: black and white, bugs, children, creepy, innocence, intricate line drawings, ladybug, nostalgia, red, surreal, sweet/melancholy, trauma, twins/doppelgangers/doubles
KuKula’s “Lonely Opulent Things”
Nataly Abramovitch AKA KuKula‘s new show, Lonely Opulent Things, opens today at the Corey Helford Gallery, with guest artist Natalie Shau. This Rococo-inspired new collection is bright with delicate, playful pastels redolent of Marie Antoinette’s exuberant era and features KuKula’s signature sweetness of style combined with melancholy and decadence, and themes of corrupted innocence. It is just so colorful!
Tags: 18th century, animals, art shows, cute, dreamscapes, historically inspired, innocence, kukula, lolitaism, natalie shau, pastel, pop surrealism, precious, sexuality, soft color, sweet/melancholy
Internal Forest: The Paper-Cutting Art of Elsa Mora
Elsa Mora is an amazing and endlessly creative paper-cutting artist. With just sharp knives and scissors, she crafts evocative, entangling scenes (perfect for framing in shadowboxes), vignettes, and storytelling images of incredible detail out of paper, resonant with fairytale whimsy and deep emotion.
Tags: anatomical-themed, animals, blood, bugs, children, elsa mora, exposed anatomy, fairy tales, innocence, miniature, nature, paper-cutting, papercraft, red and white, sinister arts and crafts, unique rings, woods
Innocent Cadavers, The Flowers of Corruption: Art by Kikyz Ferrer
Tags: abstract, abuse, children, corpses, corrupted flesh, decomposition, exposed anatomy, fleshy, flowers, hauntingly beautiful, injuries, innocence, intricate line drawings, metamorphosis, trauma
Girl with the Red Ribbon: The Art of Akiko Ijichi
Tags: animals, butterflies, innocence, melancholy, pop surrealism, red, surreal, twins/doppelgangers/doubles, wolf
Preternaturally Beautiful Horror Photography by Jenn Violetta
Visit Jenn Violetta on Flickr for more of her wonderful photography.
Tags: abuse, blood, bruises, children, colorful, emotive, flour-white face, hauntingly beautiful, horror photography, injuries, innocence, jenn violetta, medical-themed, military-themed, otherworldly photography, photomanipulation, political, surreal, trauma, violence
Nicoletta Ceccoli’s “Incubi Celesti”
These hauntingly beautiful, ethereal portraits of Alice in Wonderland-like figures clad in blue are from Nicoletti Ceccoli’s new body of work, fittingly titled Incubi Celesti (or “Heavenly Nightmares”). This collection is currently displaying at the Dorothy Circus Gallery in Rome, Italy, until December 23rd.
Tags: alice in wonderland, cute/creepy little girls, innocence, modern fairy tales, nicoletta ceccoli, otherworldly, pop surrealism, rabbits, surreal, twins
Chris Berens – “Leeuwenhart”
Chris Berens’ Leeuwenhart exhibition is currently displaying at the Roq La Rue Gallery in Seattle. These precious, glowing, softly translucent works have a surreal fairytale-land feel, and a unique look which comes from Berens’ singular method of using inks (as well as bistre, graphite, and parquet lacquer) on inkjet photo paper, and piecing the works together in a patchwork fashion in 1-3-inch pieces; some patches are suffused with a haze, while others are sharp to the point of photorealism. The overall effect has a lot of depth, layering, softness, and wonderfully dreamlike, gently bizarre qualities.
Tags: animals, babies, chris berens, deer, innocence, modern fairy tales, otherworldly, roq la rue, royalty, woods
Sinister Forest: The Art of DeerlyDeparted
DeerlyDeparted on deviantART is a talented young artist with a unique style and a vision revolving around the woods. Working in watercolors and sketches, she portrays surreal scenes of the forest, combining victimized/eerie female figures, animals (or animal skulls), “exposed anatomy,” and macabre themes in a way that’s similar to Nomi Chi. These nightmarish landscapes, crammed with symbolic morbid imagery, I find charming and fascinating, and I hope to see more from this artist in the future.
Tags: anatomical-themed, animal skulls, animals, apples, deer, innocence, modern fairy tales, surreal, vivisected, wolves, woods
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