Skin

Plot synopsis:
A young boy is pushed to get naked, shower and show all his human orifices to a police officer. The young man has a svastika tattooed on his chest. When the fat police officer (Rian Gerritsen) tells him to bend to show his anus, the detenee punches him in the face. The fat police officer's nose starts to bleed, and other officers push the boy in the wet floor of the shower room. We've been introduced to Frankie Epstein (Robert de Hoog).The Netherlands, 1979 - An unfunny joke about people travelling to Israel and coming back as Christians at a laundry shop. It's Frankie, several years before, with long blond hair. The father, Simon Epstein, (John Buijsman) does not laugh about it, so there's a weird moment. It's a family business. The mother, Anna (Sylvia Poorta), appears with a present for the son: a fishing rod. The mother almost faints against some folders and demands that the father makes his paperwork in a different way. The father leaves, so as not to argue with her, and when Frankie asks asks his mother whether she is alright, she acts as though nothing is wrong. Back home, the mother cooks. The father looks distracted, and both the wife and son tell him to stop wandering away.That very night. Frankie is puffing up while sitting on the window sill of his bedroom. A taxi driver tells him that his father "has done it again", later we will know that he's Henk, a close friend of the family. Frankie's father left home in his pyjamas because sometimes, he gets confused and thinks he is still at the concentration camp where he was imprisoned. They take him back home.Frankie calls up on his friend Jeffrey (Juliann Ubbergen), an attractive young black man. Downstairs, Jeffrey's mother (Urmie Plein) has got a hairdresser's shop. Jeffrey is a small-time drug-dealer. They both dance stupidly at a song called Skinhead. Both friends ride their mopeds around town.Back home, Anna is feeling bad again, but neither her nor Frankie can reach Simon when he gets imbued in his inner demons. Simon has gone to the funeral of a friend. Frankie wanted to go with him, his wife tells Simon, but Simon forgot all about him. In fact, Frankie went to the cemetery on his own and watched his father crying there, being consoled by Stien van der Hou, but Frankie left without saying anything or being noticed.Frankie and Jeffrey go to a nasty-looking rock club. Punks, skins... they all get together there. Frankie arrives home late, and his mother is still waiting for him. While Simon and Frankie have an argument, the latter telling the former that he should have stayed at the concentration camp, Anna suffers a fit.Cut to Frankie at prison, with the prison uniform.Back to 1979. Frankie buys a bouquet of flowers for his mother, still at hospital. Frankie tries to tell his father that Anna's been ill for some time, but Simon is too into himself to notice anything else. The mother tells Frankie to put the flowers onto some water to avoid a further argument between the two of them. Frankie goes out to have a cig, and he sees three skin-head children smashing a bike. He joins them.Back to work at the laundry shop, with Anna still at hospital, Simon tells Frankie not to show his contempt for him, because it hurts his mother. A man comes to offer his condolences to Simon, and Frankie leaves angrily, riding off in his bike.At a party, Robbert (Teun Kuilboer), a skinhead, comes to Jeffrey - who was born in the Surinam - threatening him because he's hit on his girlfriend (Anna Stam). Frankie stands by Jeffrey, pushing the skinhead back. The leading skinhead and his gang leave this once.Cut to Frankie, who is forced to go to the prison's patio. He faces some black inmates, but the guard (Sydney Swart) prevents a fight.Outside Jan's snack bar, Jeffrey is trying to turn on a motorbike. Maikel (Jorik Prins), who works there, is with his friends, spending time, as there's nobody inside. Frankie sees the boy who punched him. Jeffrey, Frankie, Maikel and some punks go after that young man. Frankie goes off when he's punched by that young man. When the gang goes back to the snack bar happy and fulfilled, Maikel's father (Bart Klever) is waiting for him. He slaps his son because he abandoned their business without even locking the door. Frankie tries to stop Maikel's father among the bewildered looks of the rest of his friends. Maikel tells Frankie to let it rest.Back at the hospital, a nurse (Joke Rosendaal) tells him that he's to come back during visit hours, not before. Nevertheless, she is more worried about the relationship between Frankie and Simon that about his falling hair or her own illness. The nurse (Mariam Versloot) appears to take Frankie out, and he rudely tells her to give Anna some water. Frustrated, Frankie and his mates take drugs and vandalize a police car. They are taken to the local police station. Frankie's parents are the only ones who do not pick their son up. Simon and Frankie argue some more.Jeffrey's mother tells Jeffrey that she'll get very angry if he has something to do with the drugs business. She cuts off all of Frankie's hair to be like his mother. Simon has not seen it yet. Simon tells Frankie off for being late, and doesn't want to listen to him, so Frankie leaves in his bike again.Cut to Frankie, who has to wear a sportive t-shirt in prison. He has to change into the uniform t-shirt, so that everybody can spot his tattooed swastika. Then, in the shower, a group of black inmates beat Frankie up.Back to Jeffrey and Frankie, riding on bike. Jeffrey wants to sell drugs in the house of a man who'll charge him 50% in exchange. At the rock venue, a brawl starts because the band don't want to play for the nazi / skinheads. Frankie doesn't want to know anything else about Jeffrey's drug dealing business. Frankie is put out by the club owner (Lukas Dijkema). Robbert tells him that he can trust his gang only.Simon is at the synagogue, but doesn't want to approach his son, in spite of the advice of the rabbi. For the disappointed father, the last straw is his shaved head.At hospital, Anna is worried because Simon is a disaster at figures. His uncle Henk (Juda Goslinga) tries to reason with him, to no avail. The family who's in the same room as Anna brings her a basketful of fruit, to which Frankie sneers at. When Henk and Simon arrive to Anna's room in hospital, Frankie leaves without even acknowledging Simon.The gang of skinheads had noticed Frankie's somber demure, especially Robbert, so they tell him to come with them. They are carrying baseball bats in a supermarket trolley, and they enter a fight with some punks. Finally, Franie fights with the skins, saving Robbert from dire straits. Frankie is greeted into the gang. Voice over of Jewish prayers. Simon cries in the synagogue. The group scares Jeffrey's mother, and although Frankie tells her it's only a joke, she doesn't believe him - logically. Jeffrey ends up punching Frankie when he hears of it.Henk visits Frankie in prison. Simon doesn't get the courage, or the wish to do so. Jeffrey and his mother are there. Henk promises to bring Simon next time. In the yard of the prison, Frankie and Jeffrey speak together, something which everybody else notices. The leader of the black people in prison provokes Frankie, who throws his food at him and is sent to the isolation ward.Henk tells Simon and Frankie that Anna has died. Frankie cries and his nose bleeds. In shock, Frankie walks in the middle of traffic. At the funeral, Robbert and the skinheads appear. Simon won't allow Frankie to throw a piece of earth on the coffin. Henk is driving Simon back home, and Simon keeps on giving shit to his son, so Henk tells him to get off, leaving him in the sidewalk of some street.Frankie has his nazi tattoo done. He invites Robbert to Jan, the bar, where Maikel and his father welcome them both. Outside, some punks are gathering, and Maikel's father faces them with a baseball bat. The punks run away while Robbert, Maikel and his father laugh them off. A few moments afterwards, the gang of puns come back to the bar. They are many against a few. Robbert and Frankie fight them off, so they are beaten badly. To defend Robbert, Frankie uses a knife. Everybody leaves him alone to deal with the police. The punks ask Henk for help, but he just drives off.Henk visits the laundry, where Simon is drinking himself to oblivion. Henk tells him that he was the driver who didn't help the still alive punk. Now, he is dead, so the matter has become a lot more serious.Simon finally visits Frankie. Af first, he mentions Muhammad Ali, because he doesn't know what else to say. They say that, if Frankie were not in jail, they could go fishing.All the inmates watch the Ali vs Holmes boxing match. Ali fights with the guy who provoked him before, giving him reason to knife him. Frankie dies.

Tags: violence, humor

Review:
When communication fails. 'Skin', set in a grim Dutch working class area in 1979, tells the story of Frankie, who starts out as a normal, somewhat rebellious teenager, and ends up as a neo-Nazi in jail. His Jewish father, a concentration camp survivor, is unable to communicate with his wife and son, which frustrates Frankie and has already created a clearly uneasy father-son relationship at the beginning of the film. When Frankie's mother gets seriously ill and needs to be hospitalized, all frustrations come creeping out from under Frankie's skin and a rough process in which he alienates from his father and most of his friends is set in motion. Even though Frankie does not intend for it to happen, he gradually finds some solace with a group of skinhead neo-Nazis, and escalation ensues.There are some parallels between this film and the classic 'American History X', but whereas that film shows us how a remorseful neo-Nazi seeks redemption, this one explores how exactly a young person who would seem an unlikely candidate for adopting such views ends up doing so for all the wrong reasons (if there even are any right ones to begin with). Moreover, 'Skin' is a strong, gripping story about what may happen when communication fails, set against a background of growing intolerance and violence.. Reality Check. An intelligent and highly believable study of violence's seeds and some of the elements which can help these seeds germinate. A study that allows us a place within the main character's mind, throughout his sad journey. The fact of the matter is that generally, physical violence is an inherent need pertaining to most kids. Doubly so boys. Triply so boys whose families are disintegrating. Discipline/reality-checks, help this need subside. Without this, the need only grows. It is a very difficult thing for us to deal with in healthy ways. Especially at an age when our brains (the only tools that can help us deal) are undergoing so much literal reconstruction. When this need is ignored, the results are often both painful and permanent. Moral of the story? Worst case scenario, kid's got a temper, spending time together isn't working, don't know what to do - enroll him into a good MMA school. Or Jiu Jitsu or Karate, anything really. Anything that provides him a safe way to channel this pent up need on one hand and yet also provides controlled reality-checks and discipline on the other hand. It isn't the perfect solution, but often, it is by far the lesser of all the evils at hand.. Skin review. Skin is a movie about the difficulties of life after the experience of a concentration camp and is set in the Netherlands in 1979. Robert de Hoog (brilliantly) plays Frankie, the son of a holocaust survivor; a man who struggles to leave his war experiences behind and begin to live a normal life. In being like this, he begins to frustrate Frankie, who slowly becomes more and more distant from his father as the movie progresses. Their lives are turned upside down by the hospitalisation and eventual death of Frankie's mother, who held the family together. Seeking solace, Frankie joins a group of Neo-Nazis, an action that causes his social life to break down. The film shows Frankie's slow demise very cleverly with analeptic shots of Frankie's life before he was incarcerated, as the film switches between past and present. All in all, this is an excellent film and one I would recommend to anyone who wants to learn how badly the holocaust can affect a person's life, and to see how families can be torn apart by a teenager's desire to be accepted.. Lack of Support. Skin follows the story of Frankie, a teenaged Dutch boy living in 1979 during the punk revolution. The story cuts between two different time periods; before and after he is sent to prison. Before his sentence, we are shown his strained relationship with his father, a Jewish concentration camp survivor, and his mother's fight with cancer. These family struggles make it easy to see why Frankie is as rebellious as he is. Throughout these scenes, we see Frankie become increasingly worse, ending up getting involved with a gang of neo-Nazis. His troubles are clear to the audience, when he allows the gang to give him a swastika tattoo on his chest, despite the fact that his father was part of a Nazi concentration camp. Robert de Hoog plays Frankie brilliantly, resulting in a nomination for an International Emmy Award for Best Actor, and winning the award for Best Actor at the Netherlands Film Festival. His winning performance allowed the audience to fully believe Frankie's story.Skin is a hard-hitting, strong story about youth rebellion, and how it can escalate from one extreme to the next, with lack of support and attention from friends and family. Frankie's Jewish roots make it harder to believe what he has become, making the story more gripping to watch.