La peau

I have more or less the same feelings toward The Skin as I do towards Liliana Cavani's more well-known The Night Porter. Both movies deal with provocative and uncomfortable sexual themes/situations taking place during World War II. Both are daring and sound fascinating on paper. Both are also weirdly boring, making me feel as though Cavani is a filmmaker who's admirably daring and willing to go to places most other directors won't go, but at the same time, can't really tell a story or make things properly involving.

Much of what The Skin and The Night Porter explores is thought-provoking and boundary-pushing. These are difficult stories that I'm glad have been told, but I just wish they were told better. I was shocked by how boring The Night Porter was, and I'm similarly surprised/disappointed by how dull and poorly paced The Skin was.

I also didn't like how the whole thing was in Italian, even though many scenes involve characters who don't speak the same language interacting and needing translators. It's very odd and distracting to have to remind yourself "I hear Italian right now, but in the film's universe, this character is actually speaking English at the moment, and so the actual Italian characters can't understand him/her."

The Skin succeeds in being thought-provoking and disturbing, but fails elsewhere, as a movie. And it's not that I think it should be "entertaining" in the traditional sense, given the subject matter. I just think it should be more involving and engrossing on a gut level. I can honestly understand why this one wallows in obscurity, despite some things here that are certainly able to be appreciated.

Maybe , two virtues : the cast and the realism about American presence in Italy after war. Shocking, a mix of Fellini and Catch 22, seductive for beautiful work of Marcello Mastrianni and for captivity of Burt Lancaster in a cage of cliches, it is adaptation of the novel of Curzio Malaparte, offering, in same measure, more than the word of book.

Maybe, today, more convincing about reactions, cliches and ways of survive in crisis time.

Exactly this cruel exploration of truth is its real virtue.

In short, a honest perspective about prejudices and tough lessons, about people behavior and their gestures.

Not story, only a chain of episotes. At final- a spoon of bitterness.

This movie tells an historic story, and begins with a somewhat arty slant. But it gradually becomes a dadaist study in human depravity and thinly veiled injustice in terrible times. Though set in WWII, it is not a war movie. It probes deeply and uncomfortably into moral issues rarely discussed in war movies. For this reason it is extremely compelling.

The plot line is not direct, and the characters often confusing, but that is it's goal to be a moving piece of cinematic art. The film develops into a Felliniesque dream where logic and a pleasant, easy, normal straightforward narrative dissolve into a a gaudy abstract symbolism that will require a second viewing to figure out. This film is on the level of Bergman, Fellini, Godard etc. It is a challenging, heartfelt film, not suitable for date night. The direction, camera, acting, editing, sets, wardrobe, casting, are excellent.

I watched this in 2020-- 12 years after it was released on the Criterion Channel. Never had heard of it, but the description sounded interesting. Interesting, the language is Italian with English subtitles, even though many of the characters are American (including Burt Lancaster) who was ironically typecast as the dithering, bullying American general (referring to Buck Turgidson in DR STRANGELOVE).

I couldn't find any professional reviews of this film, or any box office history, so, because of its ambivalent anti-war/anti-Americanism it may never have played theatrically in the US. The Criterion Channel may be the only place you'll find it. But if you love cinema, you'll love this film.

This movie is based on the true memoirs of the main character (Curzio Malaparte) during his time when he acted as diplomatic liaison between the Allied forces and the Italian in the newly occupied Italy. The book is a collection of short stories depicting the collapse of the Italian society under Allied occupation. There is no story line between those short stories. The movie puts them in chronological order, but the reigning chaos and lack of moral message (the message is exactly the lack of morality) can confuse the spectator.

This is a very original war movie, in that the main theme is the not the war front. The Allied are not viewed from their own perspective, which is one of true liberators. Instead, the movie shows the Italian people courting the Allies as liberators in order to escape from starvation. The Allies themselves are caught in a trap where they know the Italian hospitality isn't sincere, but are unable to understand why. They don't realize that before them, the Germans were courted as liberators too, and that in this context of food shortage and general poverty, the only way the Italians have to secure their survival is to play that game.

Malaparte (played by Marcello Mastroiani) acts then as a translator, helping the Americans as a guide would help a tourist, by explaining in each situation why people are acting in this seemingly dishonorable way.

La Pelle (The Skin) would make more sense if compared to Malaparte's twin book on the occupied Europe (Kaputt, or Broken to Pieces). In the latter, he portrays the Nazi way of oppressing through violence. In La Pelle, he shows how the Americans achieve a similar result through economic means, while refusing any responsibility. In Kaputt, Jewish women are made prostitutes by the German Army to escape death by the bullet; in La Pelle, Italian women become prostitutes for the American Army to escape death by starvation.

My father was in this film as the "Veterinarian" and therefore I was able to be on the set for a couple of the scene's being filmed. This was a great experience and being up close to the filming, the director and the cast was really a fantastic opportunity and then to see the film when it was released in an Italian movie theater as a finished product was a real treat.

Over the years I have had contact with a few of the American's that were cast for "La Pele" (most of them as extra's). Many of the American's were from the NATO base in Naples, Italy and were friends with or knew my father.

This may not have been the greatest war film ever made but the experience that I had was great and will always be remembered.

Mike Cohen / mikesc99@hotmail.com