Marina de Van wrote, directed and starred in this, her feature film debut, which is a graphic exploration of addiction and raw human desire.
At a work-related party, ambitious businesswoman, Esther (de Van) trips on some metal in the backyard and tears a gaping wound in her leg. At first she doesn't notice, but as the night wears on she glimpses her own bloody footprints on the carpet and eventually though rather reluctantly, goes to the hospital to get herself stitched up.
Over the next few days she begins to pick at the wound and gouge new ones as things such as her demanding job, and over-protective boyfriend begin to stress her out; she finds that this practice relaxes her. Due to her work and worried loved ones, Esther tries to hide her self-harm and even goes so far as to fake a car crash to explain the lacerations on her arms. As the days and weeks progress, she begins to lose control and at one stage mutilates herself under the table at a dinner function whilst hallucinating. As her addiction reaches its peak she holes up in a hotel room and greedily cannibalizes herself while documenting her disfiguration with polaroids and saving chunks of her own skin to dry out like animal hide and stash in the safety of her purse for later.
In My Skin portrays a woman in the depths of an obsession very few (if any) of us can understand; she begins to lose her sense of feeling, both emotionally and physically, and to compensate for it she begins to fetishize her body by exploring it in the most visceral way possible: by revelling in her own flesh & blood, tearing and eating her skin and wallowing wildly in her blood. It seems Esther's addiction to excessive self-mutilation began as a coping mechanism, but soon transformed into an act of narcissism taken to the extreme. When we see her caressing her opened up body, and erotically nibbling at her limbs, she is the ultimate egomaniac lost inside herself.
At times the film can get quite graphic, especially in the last fifteen minutes when Esther is letting loose on herself in the hotel room: tearing chunks of flesh off with her teeth; cutting her face up with a kitchen knife, and further going to work on her leg. Yet some of the most teeth-gritting scenes for me were in the beginning of the film when she first cuts her leg up then opens the wound up further. The sound & gore effects are top-notch and make for some tense squirmin'-in-yer-seat moments.
In My Skin is another great piece of modern French film-making that's right up there with the best of Catherine Breillat and Gaspar Noé's work. Also recommended for fans of those other self-mutilation-themed films: Naked Blood and Cutting Moments
At a work-related party, ambitious businesswoman, Esther (de Van) trips on some metal in the backyard and tears a gaping wound in her leg. At first she doesn't notice, but as the night wears on she glimpses her own bloody footprints on the carpet and eventually though rather reluctantly, goes to the hospital to get herself stitched up.
Over the next few days she begins to pick at the wound and gouge new ones as things such as her demanding job, and over-protective boyfriend begin to stress her out; she finds that this practice relaxes her. Due to her work and worried loved ones, Esther tries to hide her self-harm and even goes so far as to fake a car crash to explain the lacerations on her arms. As the days and weeks progress, she begins to lose control and at one stage mutilates herself under the table at a dinner function whilst hallucinating. As her addiction reaches its peak she holes up in a hotel room and greedily cannibalizes herself while documenting her disfiguration with polaroids and saving chunks of her own skin to dry out like animal hide and stash in the safety of her purse for later.
In My Skin portrays a woman in the depths of an obsession very few (if any) of us can understand; she begins to lose her sense of feeling, both emotionally and physically, and to compensate for it she begins to fetishize her body by exploring it in the most visceral way possible: by revelling in her own flesh & blood, tearing and eating her skin and wallowing wildly in her blood. It seems Esther's addiction to excessive self-mutilation began as a coping mechanism, but soon transformed into an act of narcissism taken to the extreme. When we see her caressing her opened up body, and erotically nibbling at her limbs, she is the ultimate egomaniac lost inside herself.
At times the film can get quite graphic, especially in the last fifteen minutes when Esther is letting loose on herself in the hotel room: tearing chunks of flesh off with her teeth; cutting her face up with a kitchen knife, and further going to work on her leg. Yet some of the most teeth-gritting scenes for me were in the beginning of the film when she first cuts her leg up then opens the wound up further. The sound & gore effects are top-notch and make for some tense squirmin'-in-yer-seat moments.
In My Skin is another great piece of modern French film-making that's right up there with the best of Catherine Breillat and Gaspar Noé's work. Also recommended for fans of those other self-mutilation-themed films: Naked Blood and Cutting Moments