Der Mann, der seine Haut verkaufte

YES! "The Man Who Sold His Skin" left me with so many answers to gut hunches I had about the businness of art and how it steals peoples souls. This is a story driven movie, simple filming some amazing shots and locations, economic dialogue that required some of the most intense acting from Yahya Mahani. This brothers abilty to show emotion was so thorough that I actually felt what he was going through. Such a powerful perfomance that I had to come on here and tell people of this movie. I have never seen or heard a story like this. A must see for REAL movie fans who need more then watching blind entertainment. I found this while searching tattoos.

"The Man Who Sold His Skin," Tunisia's first ever International Feature Film nominee at the Academy Awards, reminded me a lot of the movie "Synonyms" from last year. Both are about men who have been exiled from their countries of origin -- in one the man is a Syrian refugee, in the other a young man self exiles himself from the oppressive military culture of Israel. In both films, the men find themselves turned into commodities by their adopted countries, welcomed only as much as they can prove themselves to be useful. I liked both films quite a lot, "Synonyms" probably a bit more, but "The Man Who Sold His Skin" is quite good in its own right.

It's apparently based on a true story, though I always take that claim with a grain of salt. The man at the film's center agrees to have his entire back tattooed with a visa that allows refugees to travel freely through Europe, which turns him into a living work of art on display in museums and galleries. The lack of narrative subtlety is compensated for by a striking visual style. This film looks beautiful, nearly every scene offering the viewer composition just begging to be admired. Indeed, at times it's almost a little too beautiful, too carefully composed, as if the director just couldn't help but make choices that would draw attention to themselves. But it's a sin I can forgive when the results are a movie that looks as good as this one does.

Grade: A.

"The Man Who Sold His Skin" depicts a refugee forced into an unpleasant predicament. In showing the plight of refugees, Kaouther Ben Hani's Academy Award-nominated movie also looks at the cold attitudes of supposedly highbrow individuals. The sad thing is that there are probably people in real life who have gotten subjected to this sort of thing. I recommend it.

Greetings again from the darkness. Lao Tzu wrote, "Being loved deeply by someone gives you strength, while loving someone gives you courage." But to what extreme would you go for true love, and how far is too far? Writer-director Kaouther Ben Hania offers an early scene on a commuter train as Sam Ali and Abeer flirt and tease to the point that he publically, and loudly, proclaims his love for her. Unfortunately for him, his outburst occurs in Syria, where human rights are always in peril. In fact, this love story is burdened with the weight of human rights, individual choices, and the power of art.

Ms. Ben Hania bookends her film with a choreographed art installation coated in a blizzard of white walls and white gloves. It's 2011, when a distant relative in law enforcement assists Sam Ali (Yahya Mahayni) with his (quite creative) escape from Syria to Lebanon - after a painful slap of reality accompanies Sam's goodbye to his beloved Abeer (Dea Liane in her first screen credit). As Sam flees for his life, Abeer is pressured by her family into an arranged marriage.

We then flash forward one year to find Sam working in a Beirut chicken factory. He scrounges for food at the buffet of local art galleries until one day he is spotted by Soraya (a blond Monica Bellucci), the agent for acclaimed artist Jeffrey Godefroy (Koen De Bouw). When Sam and Godefroy meet, the artist tells him that art is "alive" and, more precisely, "I want your back". A Faustian deal is cut. Godefroy turns Sam Ali into a living piece of art by tattooing his back, and Sam gets the travel visa he desperately needs to reunite with Abeer.

With Sam basically a commodity (there are even T-shirts of his back in the gift shop), there are protests to his being exploited - this despite Sam enjoying the nice hotels, room service, and promise of the visa. Of course, as with any commodity, it's only a matter of time before the almighty dollar comes into play, and soon Sam is auctioned off to a collector. Subtle humor has a role throughout much of the film, and Mr. Mahayni is quite believable as a Syrian refugee sacrificing for love. Ms. Ben Hania's film is inspired by "Tim", an original artwork tattoo by Wim Delvoye sold to a collector in 2008. Mr. Delvoye, a controversial Belgian artist, even makes a brief appearance here as an insurance agent. This is a thought-provoking love story, survival tale, and commentary on the bent side of the art world. When is a man truly free? We don't typically think of Tunisia as a hotbed for cinema, but this film deserves attention.

A desperate man on the run from Syria, sells his back as a canvas for an eccentric artist. He sits as a display for audiences at galleries and museums. His girlfriend Has moved to Belgium with her new husband. He is well paid but has doubts about his choice. The story uses a real life situation where a man sold his skin to an artist. The movie was nominated for an Oscar and I rank it just below A Better Life in the foreign film category.