Dreadfully Boring

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

According to Descartes, embodiment is the necessary concept for becoming complete human being. It is an idea of two things which are connected each other in order to unite into a mind which we call being. We have our brains and our bodies to fulfill this formation. In consideration of this notion, approaching "Dans ma peau" as crucial example of duality is an inevitable.In the very first scene where Esther get injured, she is not aware of her own wound. Therefore, we can create first opinions for objectification between her body and herself. When she goes to the doctor who jokes about if the leg belongs to her or not, we can get the further idea of objectification that leads disconnection which is already started between Esther and her body. According to French philosopher Gabriel Marcel, there are two ways in the act of knowing: primary reflection and secondary reflection. In primary reflection, we place ourselves out of the things we are viewing. In this approach, my body is just a body and nothing else. It is like an object. However, when we look at the secondary reflection, we recognize that we are part of things we are viewing. It is my body that is uniquely mine. Hence, we cannot simplify our bodies like we do in the primary reflection. This is the case that Esther encounters. She sees her body as an instrument apart from her being. It is like an extension of herself, just as her cloths are extension of her skin. She has her body unlike she is her body.The body works as a mediator to ensure connection with the outer world like a bridge or a wall to prevent from that connection which leads disconnection. We can see disconnection between Esther and her body obviously in the dinner scene. Esther is experienced her arm tears apart from her. She tries cutting her arm with the knife, but she feels nothing. Her arm disconnects from Esther and becomes an object especially just a meat. She finds that increasingly more alluring. After this exploration, Esther becomes attracted by her body pushing her to start exploring what is under her skin. This leads her to get a hotel room for communicating with her body in secrecy. Because, this is not something she can talk about to her boyfriend or her friends. She enjoys her self-mutilation. Unlike hating her own body, she definitely shows to us that she is in love with her body. She keeps her raw skins and even trying to dry them for having her own skin are indicators of fondness for her body.On the other hand, these acts of Esther can be interpreted as concerns about the social life. Indulging completely from herself with ignoring all her friends even her boyfriend is an anti-social behavior. This behavior creates another level of embodiment which is about the social constructivism. In the social constructivism, single human being and the society are fused into a single mind. Esther escapes this duality to ensures her independence and individualism.

When I bought In my Skin I didn't really know that the whole film was about self-harming and self-mutilation (they both mean the same thing, but it makes me sound cleverer!) I thought it was about a woman who gets something supernatural in her skin, a bit like the killer vines in The Ruins and it was taking over her body and she had to get it out etc. If I had known that In my Skin was about self-harming then I would've been more hesitant about buying it, because I can deal with bodies being dismembered and gallons of blood, but I can't deal with relatable things like cuts and stuff. I cringe at the blood sample scene in The Thing for Christ's sake and I nearly die at that wrist-cutting scene in Martyrs! So what would I be like in this? Well I didn't turn away (I paid for it, so I'm watching it!) but I did cringe. A lot! By the end of it I felt so tense and there was a lot of face scrunching and bloated cheeks. I find it hard to think of a film more cringeier if I'm honest!However, if you can deal with self-mutilation then you won't find In My Skin too repellent (if you don't find any of it repellent then you need serious help). I found In My Skin to be a profoundly interesting film. However, I could also see why people would find it boring and repetitive because I would've liked to have seen perhaps a stronger narrative. But in terms of a character study, In my Skin is superb! I just can't help but think that it could've been better if it balanced intense character study with engaging plot like Black Swan did so tremendously well. Having said that In My Skin is extremely involving as the camera never leaves our main character (Esther). It follows her around in a mostly hand-held style so that we really get inside her head and for the most part it is really interesting.There are some quite astonishing moments and I quite liked the way in which it lingered on her self-mutilation because it gave it a disturbingly realistic edge and also conveyed how significant these events are to her. The restaurant scene is a particular stand-out moment as it mixes realism with surrealism so that we really get deep inside Esther's head. I found it clever how everyone's talking, but Esther's not listening and neither are we (well reading). We're as transfixed to her body as she is. Another stand-out moment of directing is the use of split screen towards the end, as we get that horrible oppressive feeling which Esther must feel too.There's a fantastic sense of a downward spiral and I really like that sort of thing when a character goes on a journey from being normal and ending up as a complete wreck, which is what Darren Aronofsky does so incredibly well. Obviously, In My Skin isn't as fantastic as Aronofsky, but it is a highly memorable and psychologically intense piece of work. The Marina lady who wrote, directed and starred is clearly a talented woman because she does all three tremendously well, although she could do with a slight push in the writing area. In My Skin leaves you feeling filthy which is what a good horror film should do! It's yet another example of superior French horror and shows that they really do know the real meaning of fear.Although In My Skin may not be as great as other French works such as Calvaire, Inside and Martyrs. It is still a highly thought-provoking and brave film which dares to go where many people don't have the guts to. The intense character development makes the film quite gripping and you end up feeling quite attached to Esther despite her monstrous behaviour, because it's obvious that she's normal at heart, or at least used to be normal. In My Skin is a tragedy in the end and it's full of emotion and directional flourish. It's also one of the cringiest films I've ever seen. I'd recommend it for the brave.

I would not say that what I just have seen is a real horror. I would call it drama with a little sickening horror twist. I can believe that it isn't for everybody. It was made one year before Haute Tension, the start of the French sickies. The storyline is simple. A simple and normal girl has no problem at all until at a party she falls in a bunch of metal things. She won't make any notice of it and parties on before going to a hospital. There she got the news that she came too late to heal it properly. She has to go under surgery but she doesn't want it. But she becomes obsessed with her wounds. The feeling in her leg goes away and she starts cutting herself until things really go wrong with her. Horror geeks will have a problem with the movie due the reason that they talk a lot, typical for French movies. And drama geeks will cut away once she will go wild on her wounds. So it's up to y'all to watch it. But if you want to see the evolvement of French sickies then you better watch it. At the end of the day, if you liked Cutting Moments than this is your piece of cake.

As a mental health researcher, I'm always intrigued by movies that display pathology. So when people start doing things that are not explained by an underlying mental disorder, I get confused. Perhaps because of the translation (or a poorly written story), I just didn't see what her underlying reason was for her self-mutilation. I thought maybe it was something akin to Body Dysmorphic Disorder (evidenced by seeing her disconnected hand on the table at the business dinner). I couldn't quite understand what was going on with her, and I would have liked to see some reasoning for her pathology.Unfortunately, lacking any sort of character driving force, this movie seemed like an excuse to shock the audience with something on the edge of disturbing and taboo. Because of the lack of character development, it seemed simply to be an exercise in exhibitionism, which certainly dampened the effect of the film.