“The Man Who Sold His Skin” without getting flayed
“The Man Who Sold His Skin”, a satire by Kaouther Ben Hanla, really does delve into the notion of part-objects and our investment of ourselves into them, and what we will sacrifice to get our own way with “justice”, so to speak.
A Syrian refugee Sam Ali (Yahya Mahanyi) has fixated on an upper class Belgian woman he probably can’t have, Abeer (Dea Liane). We all know the feeling, don’t we, if we’ve really lived. An innocent proposal on a train gets videoed and authorities, misunderstanding, throw him in jail.
Soon however, a Faustian entrepreneur Jeffrey Godefroi (Koen de Beow) arranges a Trump-like deal. The artist will tattoo a Schwengen visa on Ali’s smooth back, and he’ll become a traveling art show, almost like a freak at a carnival. He has a temptress as a partner, Soraya Waldy (Monica Bellucci). In fact, someone will buy the rights to his art (maybe as an NFT, nonfungible digital token) to have his corpse skinned when he dies. There really was an arrangement like this with one Tim Steiner and a Belgian artist Wim Delvovye.
My reaction to hearing about a title like this, is to ponder public headshaving rituals as fundraisers, especially for cancer, to prove you can sacrifice something of your superficial self. Or, recall the mysterious 1961 Tribunals at William and Mary, which I skipped out on, that involved more body shaving (or that notorious scene from “Andromeda Strain”). I always think of (white) men tattooing their arms, legs, and chest as disfiguring themselves.
In the end, there has to be an auction, and how you can auction someone’s skin is a bit of an issue, except with a NFT. There is a disruption, and he winds up in jail, and then says he is glad to go back to Raqqa, his old life, now the heart of darkness — for a final twist.
The film got an Oscar nomination for best International Picture and was at the Red Sea Film Festival.
Table:
Name: “The Man Who Sold His Skin“
Director, writer: Kaouther Ben Hanla
Released: 2021
Format: 2.35:1
When and how viewed: Avalon Theater online, 2021/4/11
Length: 106
Rating: NR
Companies: Cinetekefilms, Tanit, Samuel Goldwyn
Link: official
Stars: ***__
(Posted: Sunday, April 11, 2021 at 3 PM EDT)