Review - Mysterious Skin

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First order of business. I must demand that everyone go and see Gregg Araki's new film Mysterious Skin when it comes to your local Movie-Hut. Best film of 2005 (so far...). I got to see it at the Tribeca Film Fest with Mr. Araki and stars in attendance, and I wanted to hug them after it was over. I was/am a big fan of the book by Scott Heim, back in my college days, and was worried the film wouldn't live up to my expectations, but it did and then some. Just really lovely, powerful filmmaking. I didn't know Araki had it in him.
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Roger Ebert sums up my feelings on the film perfectly in his review today. He calls it "at once the most harrowing and, strangely, the most touching film I have seen about child abuse."

I saw the film a second time here in NYC at Film Forum, and during an especially intense scene (you'll know it once you see it, believe me), a woman in the audience literally began to shriek and ran sobbing out of the theater. I don't know if that will make anyone want to go see the movie or will keep you away, but I myself have never seen anyone ever react like that in a theater and was pretty much in awe of it.

It's the sort of thing you hear about, a woman fainting during Passion of the Christ, or the old waivers you have to sign to watch some schlocky horror movie of the fifties that the theater wouldn't be held responsible for trauma inflicted by the film... but to actually see and hear someone react so strongly... I respect a film that can do that.
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