Esther (Marina de Van) is having a time at a local soirée she attends.
Bored with gazing at art and small talk, our heroine wanders the backyard where she injures her leg, and although she mysteriously doesn’t feel a thing, her limb is nevertheless fucked up six ways to Sunday.
Even though the medical attention Esther seeks out assures her that, while gnarly, the wound is normal, even with the lack of pain… she soon begins an obsession with the wound, gouging it whenever she can… and while this newfound self-harm love fest plays out, our protagonist succeeds in the workplace while managing to frustrate both her boyfriend Vincent (Laurent Lucas) and her friend Sandrine (Léa Drucker).
As her addiction grows, Esther begins moving on to other parts of her body in ever-more extreme fashion which makes covering up her actions increasingly difficult…
Written/directed/and starring de Van, In My Skin dives head-first into the territory of self mutilation with stark, unflinching style, making the audience voyeurs to a woman’s dark and deeply personal struggle for complete body autonomy.
De Van is certainly up to the task at hand, with a performance that takes her from detached participant in her life, to being completely in control of herself body and soul to an absolutely shocking degree, and while the subject matter could easily dovetail into straight-up exploitation film over-the-top grisliness, de Van keeps things realistic and downplayed for the most part, even if the narrative is filled to the brim with blood and nudity.
While we are on the subject of our beloved red sauce, In My Skin features plenty of it, along with some excellent practical effects artistry… but for as gory as some of our hero’s exploits are, the symbolism of that blood as a baptism into a more self-assured existence makes the ghoulish goings-on (at times) as beautiful as it is empowering to Esther.
If one is willing to take a stroll through the deeper waters of the film’s creation and themes, Severin have included three audio commentaries to help you do just that!
Comprised of conversations with de Van (in French and subtitled in English), film critic Justine Smith, and an episode of the Faculty of Horror podcast, these commentaries provide us with all the details of the film’s production, a scholarly examination of it’s themes, and an exploration of In My Skin from a fan’s perspective respectively.
Also included are the film’s French and U.S. trailers.
A Blu-ray edition of the film is present here as well featuring the aforementioned commentary tracks and trailers, as well as an interview with de Van (with special appearance from her cat!), video essays from authors Barbara Creed and Dr. Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, and four short films (two by de Van, and two similar in tone to In My Skin).
If you dig on flicks like Cronenberg’s Crash and/or Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance, In My Skin will be right up your arcane alley; it’s a brilliantly acted and conceived body horror thriller with more on it’s mind than bloody hijinks (but those are there too)!
