Dans ma peau

Plot synopsis:
Set in France, "In My Skin" tells the story of Esther (Marina de Van, who also wrote and directed this film) who seems to have it all. She has a great job, an active social life and an adoring boyfriend.One night, whilst attending a house party with work colleagues, she hurts her leg in the backyard on some industrial supplies. She is alone when it happens and doesn't even realize she has been hurt until much later, briefly inspecting the damage in an upstairs bathroom. She leaves the party for more drinks with friends.She visits a doctor (played by Van's real-life brother, Adrian de Van) afterwards who patches her up and wonders why she didn't feel anything until much later. Esther wonders too, but seems unconcerned about any cosmetic damage. He asks her jokingly, "Are you sure it's your leg?"The next day, Esther, in the bath, is fascinated by the folds of skin around her thigh. Her Boyfriend Vincent (Laurent Lucas) finds out about her injury after walking in on her taking off her dressings. He is concerned as to why she didn't feel anything until later too and even decides to test if she can feel anything by lightly touching her arm when she is not looking. She reacts to it normally, but they soon begin to fight before making up quickly.At work, Esther is asked by a supervisor (Thibault de Montalembert) to correct a mistake she made. In the middle of typing she runs to a filing closet, finds a random piece of metal and proceeds to cut herself further. Esther then goes to her friend Sandrine (Lea Drucker) and asks her to come have a break but Sandrine declines. Esther reveals candidly that she has just cut herself before laughing it off. Sandrine is concerned and asks Ester to stay over at her place for the night.At Sandrine's house Esther has a shower and Sandrine, coming in to deliver Esther's clean clothes, sees the extra cuts Ester made to her leg. Sandrine is shocked. Esther, is again indifferent to her loved-ones concerns. Later they talk about work, Sandrine is fed-up with work and wants to move up in the company they both belong to.The next day, Sandrine and Esther attend a work function at a pool. Esther tells Sandrine she has just been promoted. Sandrine tries to act happy for Esther, but is obviously jealous. Esther later tells her boyfriend about Sandrine's jealousy but he just gets angry about the extra injuries to her leg. She asks him to stop questioning her about it. He reluctantly complies and they talk about moving in together.Esther attends a dinner with her supervisor and some other, high-management types. She stays very quiet throughout the meal and soon loses control of her left arm. The arm moves around, messing up her plate of food and then, when she seems to have regained control, it detaches completely from her body. She begins to stab at it with her steak-knife. The other's notice how silent and uncomfortable she is and she excuses herself from the table, with the knife.She checks herself into a hotel across the road and proceeds to cut and chew at her hands and thighs, leaving big bite marks. She crashes her car in the woods to explain her injuries. Vincent meets her in the ambulance, inspecting her cuts and seeming suspicious.Later, at her home, Vincent talks to her lovingly, telling her she will heal and talking about places they can move into together. Her supervisor at work, however, is not so forgiving and berates her for how she acted at the dinner the other night.Esther heads off to work the next day but becomes disorientated whilst walking through a busy shopping-strip. She stops to buy some supplies, including a camera and a new knife. She goes to another hotel room and begins to cut away at her flesh again. Including, in a very defiant act of self-mutilation, her face.The next morning she goes to a pharmacist to ask how she might preserve a piece of her skin that she claims was cut out during surgery. The pharmacist, while seeming fairly perplexed, tells her to try to tan the skin.Back at the hotel room, she calls her work, apologizing for her unexplained absence. She also calls her boyfriend and leaves a message telling him she won't be home that night.In the morning she wakes up, gets dressed and inspects her piece of skin. It has gone hard and shriveled. She places it sadly and lovingly in her bra. She quickly leaves the room. But then a subsequent shot shows her, still lying on the bed, staring vacantly into the camera. The shot fades to black.

Tags: insanity, comedy

Review:
Looking at the film on the surface, I was disturbed by the imagery, as apparently were the other people in the theatre who all left before the movie was over.
Surely, the woman's friends and family in the film would spend hours later determining what they actually saw or thought they knew or wish they knew about the woman and her addictive behaviors.
If she found the right person to share her thoughts with we may have ended up with an equally bizarre love story.I found it difficult to watch this movie all the way through without a break.
It is an intimate and plausible portrait of a woman who has lived her life on autopilot until she finally finds a way to feel alive and beautiful: by mutilating herself.
In My Skin certainly has some problems; but one of these problems isn't originality, and while things such as a lack of a true plot formula and explanation for the central character's actions may put some viewers off, the film deserves huge credit for stepping out of the mainstream and delivering something a little different to what most film fans will be used to.
She is confused by the fact that despite the injury, she didn't really feel any pain and it's not long before she begins experimenting with her body and pain tolerance; eventually becoming unable to refrain from slicing herself open.The film is very different to the average mainstream horror and will not be well received in all circles.
The film must then rely on its central character and set pieces, and the writer/director/lead actress definitely does deliver in this area.
Synopsis :After falling and cutting her leg severely at a party, Esther becomes obsessed with the lack of pain she experienced.
The Belcourt Cinema in Nashville warned ticket holders that they would not get a refund if they left the theater as In My Skin, a creepy French quasi-horror film about a girl who cuts into her body, played -- no matter how much they protested.
The real world in a common sense way of thinking is a place where a person would never want to eat them-self.
I didn't stop, and who knows if our French character will either.Give this flick a shot if you're into unique film-making.
"In My Skin" is considered by many horror fans as the most disturbing film ever made.I really don't know why,because I have seen much more graphic scenes of self-mutilation in "Cutting Moments" and Japanese "Naked Blood".It's still an excellent and deeply unsettling piece of horror.A young woman named Esther(Marina de Van)indulges in self-mutilation.She starts cutting herself and keeping pieces of her own flesh in her purse.However "In My Skin" refuses to explain Esther's behavior.At first we are led to believe that Esther cuts herself because she feels nothing else in her life,but I'm not really sure that this is the point.Anyway,the performance of the lead actress Marina de Van is excellent and the gore effects are quite good.So if you like transgressive cinema give it a look,but if you're easily offended don't watch it.8 out of 10..
While it does feature some nasty self-mutilation which eventually leads to cannibalism, the movie was quite tame when compared to others in the French Extremity.
In My Skin boils down to two things, it's an interesting look at a very bizarre addiction, but it lacks the characteristics to spin the movie in an intriguing manner..
What is most interesting in this film is that it is void of constructed meaning so whilst watching it De van never gives us answers, but goes directly to the establishment of a thinking feeling subject trying to reconnect with herself against the capitalist/consumerist world she lives in.
Dark film about a woman who becomes fascinated with her skin and self mutilation after an accident leaves her with a wound.
Graphic and tough to sit through the film raises the spotlight on an extreme form of behavior that in milder forms can lead to people cutting themselves.
Clearly its a character study more then a narrative, but at the same time I didn't get anything out of it, I just finished the film with a sense of "thats it?" Recommended only for those with strong constitutions and those wishing to be disturbed.
It's pretty boring, not much happening, no big showdown.The main idea is pretty good and disturbing though, yet nowadays there's better Horror movies out there and this would be a waste to watch if you have better options..
There will be people who only see this film as a gore/horror movie because of its disturbing scenery but as in fact it is a film that has been so well thought.
It touches ones heart with sorrow, therewithal it shows even the ones who are believed to be perfect and happy on the outside may have a damaged soul beneath.Esther spoke to me in various ways, how at the beginning she wasn't planning any of this and suddenly she just wanted to experience the pain to the hilt.
I'd been meaning to watch it, along with a few other gems associated with the New French Extremity, for quite some time now, and managed to find it at a local (but amazing) video store.First of all, this was one of the most deeply uncomfortable viewing experiences of my life.
Some of the scenes left me hiding away, and yelling "no, don't do that!" I quite like how graphic it is, but it is also a film that is hard to understand.
When I bought In my Skin I didn't really know that the whole film was about self-harming and self-mutilation (they both mean the same thing, but it makes me sound cleverer!) I thought it was about a woman who gets something supernatural in her skin, a bit like the killer vines in The Ruins and it was taking over her body and she had to get it out etc.
If I had known that In my Skin was about self-harming then I would've been more hesitant about buying it, because I can deal with bodies being dismembered and gallons of blood, but I can't deal with relatable things like cuts and stuff.
I find it hard to think of a film more cringeier if I'm honest!However, if you can deal with self-mutilation then you won't find In My Skin too repellent (if you don't find any of it repellent then you need serious help).
It follows her around in a mostly hand-held style so that we really get inside her head and for the most part it is really interesting.There are some quite astonishing moments and I quite liked the way in which it lingered on her self-mutilation because it gave it a disturbingly realistic edge and also conveyed how significant these events are to her.
Another stand-out moment of directing is the use of split screen towards the end, as we get that horrible oppressive feeling which Esther must feel too.There's a fantastic sense of a downward spiral and I really like that sort of thing when a character goes on a journey from being normal and ending up as a complete wreck, which is what Darren Aronofsky does so incredibly well.
In My Skin leaves you feeling filthy which is what a good horror film should do!
It's yet another example of superior French horror and shows that they really do know the real meaning of fear.Although In My Skin may not be as great as other French works such as Calvaire, Inside and Martyrs.
The intense character development makes the film quite gripping and you end up feeling quite attached to Esther despite her monstrous behaviour, because it's obvious that she's normal at heart, or at least used to be normal.
What could have been a fascinating portrayal of self injury ends up as forgettable blood porn and if you want that go see Crash, at least that cast can act..
A disturbing yet poetic film about self-mutilation (nine people walked out during some of the more graphic scenes at the Edinburgh International Film Festival Premiere).
In a superb tour de force, Marina de Van writes, directs and plays the principal role of a young woman who develops an almost sensuous fascination with self-harm that verges on auto-cannibalism.
The whole film consists of a woman cutting at parts of her body.
The feeling in her leg goes away and she starts cutting herself until things really go wrong with her.
Well, don't waste your timethis was perhaps the most boring film I have seen in yearsIt was boring, then briefly brutal then boring againit tries to be artistic but it's really just autisticit's not a daring brave piece of filmmaking because it truly makes no senseI tried very hard to find either the reason for the woman's actions or the hidden meaning in themNOTHING!
The subject of this movie is the report of the obsession that put one young woman to have very special relationship with her own body.
Then she begins a very strange game with her body and her blood that leads her into self-mutilation.
Well, you'll see her entire body in this movie, but I mean more movies.As for the story, it is a young woman that cuts herself accidentally.
Even in todays society there are more and more pressures, ie, work (less pay for same hours and work) a pressure to constantly change our image to appeal to men, we are constantly bombarded with images of 'perfection'.This film handles a very taboo subject, I think very well, although we are never sure why she self harms, I really feel her pain throughout the film, I don't think she enjoys to cut herself, it seems to become a coping mechanism for like most people who self harm.
She carrys on with her at time mundane life, and this gets her through it.The film was very graphic, but it needed to be, it needed to feel real.
In My Skin is a disturbing and very psychological film.
The film focuses on self-mutilation in a very sickening way.
I would go into the movie without knowing what it is about since the mental illness the main character develops is unique in film as far as I know.
I think maybe the film tries to draw some connections between self-destruction and a self-absorbed push to get all the good things in life, but I could be wrong.
I was surprised at the way self-mutilation was presented in this movie.
I went in expecting it to show it as ugly and awful, but the scariest thing is, towards the end of the movie, the violence towards herself becomes so beautiful.I find it intriguing that Esther's self-mutilation and auto-cannibalism does not stem from self-loathing or hatred of her own body.
In fact, it definitely seems to me that she is more fascinated and in love with her body thus provoking her to get into this stuff.SPOILERS Her fascination with mutilation did not come from the fact that she fell and got the ugly wound on her leg, it came only after she had it bandaged, and it started to itch and ooze pus and split open.
In the first self-mutilation scene, it feels almost as if she becomes intrigued by her wound pushing her to start exploring what is beneath her skin.
She derives pleasure entirely from her self, to the extent of shutting out everybody in her life (she is deaf to her boyfriend's worries, and in the most telling scene, she picks at her hand with her knife under the table as her friends eat), and probably the need for wholeness in the society frowns upon acts like these that asserts independence and individualism.
Perhaps that is why after so many years of people doing it, masturbation is still taboo in discussions, stirring up the alarm bells that society has injected into our blood through the many generations.END OF SPOILERS But look what you can into this film, well after all it's a French film, and if it isn't experimental, pushing-edge and thought-provoking, it isn't French enough right?
i'm sure that people will ascribe various kinds of meaning to the self- mutilation in the film, but to me it spoke of alienation from those things that are central to our lives: our work and our relationships with other people.
On the surface, In My Skin is the story of Esther, an upwardly mobile mid-30's professional woman with a loving boyfriend.
De Van wants us to feel uncomfortable, she wants us to search for greater meaning, just as Esther does and since it's obvious there's a lot more going on than what we see on the surface, we dig deeper...just like Esther.While on one hand it's (literally) painfully obvious IMS is critiquing the way we live - in addition to our material and physical obsessions - it is impossible to truly understand why Ester goes as far as she does.
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.
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 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.
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.
Strange French Body-Horror Film....
First off - IN MY SKIN is not a graphic gore film.
Understand this going into it or you will probably be very disappointed.IN MY SKIN is the relatively simple tale of a woman who becomes obsessed and addicted - in this particular case, with herself.
There is never any real reason given for the behavior - just a voyeuristic look into this woman's life and "disease".This film is not going to be for all "tastes" for a few reasons.
Personally, I enjoyed the film and found it both intriguing and haunting - and would recommend it to body-horror and art-house/drama fans - but again - don't expect a violent gore-fest, but a more understated type of "shock"...8/10.
French Extremism is brought front and center in this film Written/Directed and Starring Marina de Van as the beautiful "Ester", a young women who descends into an abyss of psychiatric darkness of self mutilation/self cannibalism/autosarcophagy.
Amazed at the fact she felt no pain, she leave she leaves the party and goes for a drink with her friends before visiting the hospital.Now infatuated with her new laceration, "Ester" spirals down the path of self mutilation, with a side of denial, shame and obsessive compulsion."In My Skin" is a sad film.
Meanwhile Esther, in the midst of this, struggles to control her urge to self-harm - and begins cutting herself beneath the table.In American Psycho, it was this same vapidity and emptiness of his world that lead Patrick Bateman to experiment with murder and extreme violence.
SPOILER This film, while fascinating and beautifully made, seems little more than a glorification of self-mutilation.
Masturbation is a wonderful way of making your body feel good.
Cutting off pieces of your own flesh and eating them doesn't make your body feel good and shouldn't be glorified or reviewed positively.So if I've spoiled the movie for you, I must say I'm glad.
When she goes to the doctor who jokes about if the leg belongs to her or not, we can get the further idea of objectification that leads disconnection which is already started between Esther and her body.
After this exploration, Esther becomes attracted by her body pushing her to start exploring what is under her skin.
My Brief Thematic Evaluation contains Heavy Spoilers....Drawing from the feminist liberation ideology found in the early paranoia pictures of Roman Polanski-- especially Repulsion-- In My Skin is a highly literate exercise in draining, existentialist horror.In the film, the main character of Esther leads a detached life from society.
Yet, instead of with another human being, it is with tearing apart her own body, of which, can be perceived as the very faulty foundation for worth and self-purpose in a society that sadly values feminine attractiveness over their intellect.In the climax, Esther realizes that she cannot preserve her skin, and therefore like everything else that society values, her life is also bound only for disappointment.