On DVD |
Mysterious Skin/Apres Vousby George Sax & M. Faust |
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Mysterious Skin (TLA Entertainment, $24.99)
Two boys’ shared, but obscured, experience of childhood sexual abuse is the thematic nexus of Greg Araki’s Mysterious Skin, making its video debut after failing to play local theaters during its spring release. One of the boys (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) becomes a cynical sexual hustler and exploiter of gay men. The other (Brady Corbett), unable to coherently recall his trauma, deflects it by obsessing on UFOs and alien abductions. Araki’s control of this complexly textured, time- and scene-shifting story is usually sure, despite a few patches of stiltedly portentous dialogue. Much of the film, particularly early on, is rendered in intense, garishly saturated colors, and deliberately off-kilter camera work, imparting a vaguely surreal tenor to what is already a movie that’s partly about strongly filtered, deranging memories. Those who remember Gordon-Levitt as the boy in the wacky sitcom “Third Rock From the Sun” will encounter a starkly different actor in an impressive performance, and the film as a whole has a disturbing, insinuating power.
***
Apres Vous (Paramount, $29.99)
If only Apres Vous (available November 8) had been written and directed by Francis Veber, the French farceur who specializes in odd couple comedies (Les Comperes, The Closet, The Dinner Game, etc,. etc.) It certainly sounds like one of his plots: The maitre d’ at an upscale French brassiere saves a man from suicide, only to find himself compelled to run the man’s life until it improves. The same human qualities that make him a successful restaurateur ruin his life as he desperately tries to help a man uninterested in helping himself. With the always engaging Daniel Auteuil, he of the endlessly mobile face, crooked nose and slightly mad eyes, as the central character, this could have been a continental classic. Unfortunately, director Pierre Salvadori lacks Veber’s skill with slapstick and outrageous circumstances. It’s still a likeable movie with pleasant performances and some satisfying comic moments, including a nice bit of business between Auteuil and a lobster.
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