La Peau Blanche (2004)
I am pretty confident in saying that this one flew under most peoples' radar. It did for me, until I picked up a copy because it had the 'Mr Horror Presents...' logo on it. For those not in the know, this is a series of films selected by the Dutch connaisseur Jan Doense and I've also discovered gems like the original 'Let the Right One In' this way.
This is once again something interesting and appealing, even though it is not as "in your face" as a lot of other pictorials. Truth be told, this is a very understated and low key film, that doesn't slam blood and guts in your face, but relies more on atmosphere, a little whiff of mystery and above all, some interesting ideas.
The story centres around two students and friends, Thierry and Henri. They share a flat together and like a lot of the male student population are often on the lookout for either quick sex or a girlfriend. One night, they go along with two prostitutes, but Henri is injured by one of them. A little while later, Thierry comes across Claire and he is instantly obsessed with her. Strange, because in his own words, he hates redheads, because of their 'white skin', yet Claire is very much a redhead. The start off as having casual sex, before she tells him she has cancer and can 't be with him, yet he persists. It is when he meets her family (her mother and two sisters) that things take a bizarre turn.
That's about all I will disclose about the story, because giving away more would utterly spoil it, even though you can see a twist of sorts coming up rather rapidly. But that is not what makes this film interesting.
What makes this film is the characters. Thierry is pretty much a dweeb, but Claire makes him come alive. She becomes the yin to his yang and she obviously cares for him, even though she doesn't want to at first. Her sister Marquise is probably one of the weakest characters, because her motivation and persona are way too obvious from the start. I also liked Thierry's friend Henri, who is a likeable guy.
This is a rather slow moving film, it's nothing flashy and sometimes, it feels a little too mundane and occasionally has the feel of a student film, but I can't deny that I like this one. It's sparse in every way, but it somehow always draws me in and despite its shortcomings, I will always enjoy it. Maybe it's because it is a breath of fresh air in an era where films have to move at breakneck speed, or maybe this is still a pretty well-crafted film that has more atmosphere than it is often given credit for. Some may call it 'arthouse', but that moniker doesn't really fit. It's not pretentious, for starters.
Yes, come at me. I said it. How often do pretentious pieces of utter tripe get labelled 'Arthouse', because everyone knows it shit, but that label will sell it because a lot of people are way too gullible?
Or maybe I just like this film because it's entirely in Canadian French? Who knows. I'm kind of partial to that Québecquois, even though I can understand regular French and often can't make heads nor tails of this type of French.
Still, I would like to recommend this one, because it feels rather different than most creepy films I own.
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