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Marina de Van, Laurent Lucas, Léa Drucker, Thibault de Montalembert, Marc Rioufol ... see more see more... , Francois Larnotte

Marina de Van, a frequent collaborator of director François Ozon's (she co-wrote several films with him, in addition to starring in See the Sea and Sitcom), makes her feature directorial debut with In... read more read more... My Skin, which she also wrote. De Van stars in the film as Esther, a self-conscious young woman who works for a public relations firm. Her life seems to be going well. Her boyfriend, Vincent (Laurent Lucas of With a Friend Like Harry...), wants to live with her. At work, she's in line for a promotion and the opportunity to run a prestigious campaign for a jewelry company. One night at a party with her friend, Sandrine (Léa Drucker), Esther wanders into the backyard and stumbles, scratching her leg on a piece of scrap metal. She goes back to the party, and later realizes that her injury is much more severe than she had thought. There's a huge, ugly gouge all the way up her shin, and she's bleeding profusely. She goes to a doctor, who patches her up and tells her she might need a skin graft. But Esther becomes obsessed with the wound. She won't let it heal, sneaking away during work to cut herself. As her leg becomes an ugly scarred mass, she begins to notice a problem with her arm. Before long, she's alienated Vincent and jeopardized her job with her compulsive, self-destructive behavior. But she continues on her grotesque downward spiral. In My Skin was shown at Lincoln Center in New York as part of their 2003 Rendez-vous with French Cinema. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi

Flixster Users

67% liked it

2,849 ratings

Critics

63% liked it

41 critics

Unrated, 1 hr. 33 min.

Directed by: Marina de Van

Release Date: November 7, 2002

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DVD Release Date: April 20, 2004

Stats: 217 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (217)

  • ceWEBrity
    August 2, 2011
    ceWEBrity
    Subversive, dirty and brave, this feels like something that would have been a Video Nasty three decades ago. Its boldness is by far its greatest quality, and Marina de Van deserves special commendation for the situations she both concocts and enacts. She's a woman with a vision t... read morehat she absolutely will see through. In My Skin is a mature look at the sometimes faulty interface between the body and the mind, one that really calls our existence into question - Esther realizes, and we alongside her, how we're essentially just shambling sacks of blood and organs. It is gruesome, but not without purpose, and the gore is as as tasteful as it possibly could be. Unfortunately, the film is not without its problems, the likes of which are too glaring to be soothed by its ambitions. Esther's candor about her body issues with her friends and loved ones is presented organically as part of her personality, but they all act detached, even when it's perfectly clear that she's causing herself considerable harm. de Van is committed to bold visual illustrations of Esther's self-mutilation AND how that self-mutilation is viewed by the people around her, but no one ever calls Esther's mental health into question - she more or less "gets away" with what she's doing. de Van's only real hesitation in this narrative comes about because of how the side characters might interfere with the crescendoing violence, so in order to solve this problem, she simply doesn't let them. So we get to see a really awesome fucked-up climax, but the terms on which we reach it are implausible. de Van's tale, so heavily rooted in psychology, takes a rather one-sided perspective; it's Esther's tale we're getting here, concerns of an otherwise realistic cast be damned. This fledgling director could stand to take a few pages out of Cronenberg's book, in terms of balance, but she clearly has a lot to offer and this is more or less a very solid debut work.
  • kiriyamakazou
    July 11, 2011
    kiriyamakazou
    In My Skin is a disturbing and very psychological film. It tells the story of a woman that injures herself at a party. Unaware of the severity of the leg wound, she doesn't discover it until later. She gets patched up, but is soon scratching away at the scars. What starts as morb... read moreid curiosity soon devolves into obsessional mutilation. The film focuses on self-mutilation in a very sickening way. This is a compulsion that can't be controlled. In typical horror fashion, it takes a serious and very real subject and amplifies it without becoming corny and gimmicky. It was interesting to see a woman destroy herself, which made it both tragic, but also strangely empowering. Overall I found it got to be a bit repetitive, and as the protagonist shoved away most people that cared for her, it just became a series of mutilations.
  • WrenchLT
    March 19, 2011
    WrenchLT
    Morbidly interesting and gripping extreme French drama about a woman that becomes obsessed with her skin after recieving a nasty gash to her leg which triggers her to self harm to satisfy her cravings. It's really not for the squeamish at all and all the scenes of skin peeling an... read mored slicing were quite nauseating. It's a really well made film though by fearless female director Marina de Van, who also plays the lead and gives a brilliant performance that draws in sympathy as she struggles with her new found 'hobby', her love life and career. Despite its sickly nature I found this film quite fascinating and worth watching for those with strong stomachs.
  • DrBenway
    February 3, 2009
    DrBenway
    On a purely visceral level, In My Skin is incredibly disturbing, if only for the graphic scenes of self-mutilation. Once you get past that, well, it's still a disturbing film, thanks to Marina de Van's intense performance and expert direction. As Esther, de Van creates a complex ... read morecharacter; does Esther hate her body or does she love it? Is she feeling disconnected from herself, or is she in tune with her body?

    Being this is a foreign movie, it's impossible to imagine something like this coming out of Hollywood without seeming absurd. What American actress could pull off the role of Esther, who spends a large portion of screen time naked, eating her own flesh and drinking her own blood in self-cannibalistic communion, without provoking laughter? Angelina Jolie? Shit no. This kind of questioning cinema is beyond the abilities of not just Hollywood, but American independent cinema. Even the best of contemporary American indies, such as Requiem For A Dream, seem safe and banal compared to this.
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  • creepfreak
    June 9, 2008
    creepfreak
    A story about a woman tearing, eating, and slowly self mutilating herself. Literally.

    In My Skin is a bizarre, bloody grotesque, and disturbing little film. Not a movie for everyone, especially for those with a weak stomach, but for those who are looking for something complete... read morely different, in a strangely deranged unique way, this is definitely the movie for you.

    In My Skin very much reminds me of some kind of David Cronenberg film. Strange, graphic and bloody, but yet very compelling at the same time. Gore aside, this movie also has some great performances, and the art direction is top notch. It's an artsy film where everything here moves at an extremely slow pace, but nevertheless, it all still seems so strangely beautiful. There's some strange message here hidden behind all the gruesome imagery, one that needs to be examined by viewers, where we can share our opinions and try to understand the actual point. Would someone, as the female character in this movie, really do the kind of things that she did? I really don't know. But out of all the crazy things that people do in this world, I wouldn't really find it hard to believe that someone, somewhere, would be doing something like this.

    Plot:

    "Attending a party, Esther decides to catch a breath of fresh air in the garden and accidentally cuts herself severely. Only later does she realize her injury and when telling this to her doctor, he asks her, "Does this leg belong to you?"

    While his question notes upon the irony of the situation, it actually is exactly what goes on in Esther's mind, as her body and mind are two. Hardly has her wound healed, before she cuts it open again, both in order to feel the pain, but also to watch how her flesh reacts. Slowly she becomes obsessed about her flesh, her blood and mutilating herself, going thru phases of self-vampirism and self-cannibalism, to a point, where she begins to peal her skin off, for later to take it out and feel it. Equally slowly, she becomes detached from the world around her, giving up friends and her job, retracting herself into a world, where she can be alone with her pealed skin.

    The self-mutilation of Esther begins as any other act of self-mutilation, due to stress and low self esteem. She isn't as attractive as her girlfriend, nor as successful at work. During the early stages of the film, while her girlfriend is writing a report for the ministry unsupervised, she has to rewrite her report, as her boss found it flawed. But soon it becomes obvious, that she has become addicted to it. During a business dinner, the image of her boss pealing a grape excites her to such a degree, that she first rips her stocking, then, as she watches her arm being detached from her body, has to go away for a moment, to satisfy her urge by cutting herself over and over. Its not lust, but addiction, and within days, her addiction has reached a level, where she hardly can get home, before she maniacally indulges in acts of self-vampirism."


    This movie also focuses a lot on slow driven character study. At first it gets us weirdly acquainted with the female lead, just enough as to where her pain later becomes more believable to us, and as the film goes on it only becomes even more shocking. I recommend this movie only for those of you who are really into extreme cinema.

    Other Reviews:

    "As unrelenting an exploration of isolation and dissociation as Roman Polanski's Repulsion."
    - The New York Times

    "A bizarre exercise in perversion that will well test even the most jaded art house audiences' appetite for the offbeat."
    - The Hollywood Reporter

    "Fiercely uncompromising psychodrama infused with a keen intelligence and a sinister primordiality."
    - Chicago Reader

    "In My Skin takes that pain/pleasure principle and magnifies it until you're either dumbstruck or running screaming from the theater."
    - Boston Globe

    "A truly trangressive film as unsettling as it is psychologically acute."
    - TV Guide

    "An experience you won't easily shake."
    - Entertainment Weekly

    "Spectacularly grotesque and literally nauseating, even for this usually intrepid moviegoer, In My Skin is among the more disturbing films in this blood-drenched cinematic season."
    - Los Angeles Times

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  • kenstachnik
    May 28, 2007
    kenstachnik
    so unsettling...oh god...it's...I feel so dirty
  • fb100000458003440
    August 2, 2011
    fb100000458003440
    All the blood in the world couldn't save this film from being slow-paced and boring. It also doesn't help that the main character is pretty hard to look at.
  • patrickdol
    August 13, 2007
    patrickdol
    This sucker really gets under your skin. I watch alot of movies and alot of which are quite gory and disturbing, yet this movie is really un-easy to shake off. Some of the parts in this film really makes me cringe. If you think you can take it, don't waste time, go and watch this... read more film.
  • Hellshocked
    May 8, 2007
    Hellshocked
    Boy this is a hard one to describe. Clearly a very personal film by Mariana de Van, who also wrote and starred in it, it can often be a harrowing experience to endure.

    The film is about the exploration of Marina de Van's relationship with her body, which can often feel as det... read moreatched from her mind as she sometimes feels from the rest of society. Her cutting is at times erotic, at times savage and at times scientific. There is a phenomenal dinner scene where many of the film's themes are laid bare: as Marina sits, unable to relate to any of what her co-workers are saying, she also fantasizes she's lost control of her arm, and through self-injury is able to regain it and keep from drifting off into her own self-absorptions.

    Brave, uncompromising. Not for everyone.
  • liannenoone
    August 7, 2010
    liannenoone
    After hearing a lot about this movie, I had myself braced for some terrifying images of self-mutilation. Come to find out that many of the most gruesome images are totally off camera. There is definitely some psychologic morbidness, though. I kept thinking that maybe the characte... read morer Esther could have potentially had a depersonalization disorder, where a person feels separate from their bodies as well as their emotions and environments. However, from what I've read from the director the main character is simply fascinated with the endurance and disfigurement of the human body. Anyway, it made for an interesting fictional case study. I do not agree with the statement, albeit totally valid, that there was not enough focus shed on Esther's inner thinkings and motives. I believe that this placed the viewer in the confused and baffled position that those around Esther, and probably Esther herself at times, were in. I like that the answer for why she acts so bizarrely is not made obviously known, for I don't even really think that it was clear to Esther either. However, there were some parts that seemed to be pointlessly bizarre, as in they didn't really add anything to the development of the character or the story (skin chips? wtf?). Overall, I appreciate the tackling of the subject matter, but am left feeling like it could have been done much better.

View All In My Skin (Dans ma peau) Reviews

Critic Reviews

Michael O'Sullivan
June 4, 2004
Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post

As it is, it's a silly, if simultaneously deadpan and stomach-churning, psychological portrait of one crazy lady. Full Review

Gary Dowell
February 19, 2004
Gary Dowell, Dallas Morning News

All you're left with is a bloody mess, in more ways than one. Full Review

Robert K. Elder
December 23, 2003
Robert K. Elder, Chicago Tribune

A spellbinding, forceful film that refuses to be ignored. Full Review

Ty Burr
December 5, 2003
Ty Burr, Boston Globe

As disquieting a portrait of psychosis as has ever spilled across the screen. Full Review

C.W. Nevius
November 28, 2003
C.W. Nevius, San Francisco Chronicle

A bloody mess. Full Review

V.A. Musetto
November 7, 2003
V.A. Musetto, New York Post

Needless to say, In My Skin isn't for everybody. It's recommended to viewers who, like Esther, want to feel something, no matter how distasteful.

Jami Bernard
November 7, 2003
Jami Bernard, New York Daily News

If you can get beyond the ick factor, there awaits an accomplished movie in the tradition of David Cronenberg, in which the body's festering serves as a departure point for an exploration of what make... Full Review

Frank Scheck
November 7, 2003
Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter

Lacking Cronenberg's or David Lynch's cinematic style, the film eventually becomes a numbing, repetitive and, yes, gross exercise in would-be shock value.

John Anderson
November 6, 2003
John Anderson, Newsday

Not easy, but it is thoroughly cinematic and gripping. Full Review

Stephen Holden
November 6, 2003
Stephen Holden, New York Times

Is as unrelenting an exploration of isolation and dissociation as Roman Polanski's Repulsion. Full Review

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