Metal Skin

This film was totally unexpected, on the surface it is another simple story of youth gone wrong, but behind all these gritty characters and realistic dialogue is a deep complex story line dealing with many themes. The filming and editing techniques help to explore these themes resulting in an Cult Australian hit. Granted this film is not for everyone. Many people will miss the complexity of this film and end up simply judging the story superficially or they will not enjoy the setting of impoverished youth in Melbourne, Australia. The story concerns a group of disenfranchised youth. Joe, who lives with his insane father, gets a job at a wholesale warehouse where he meets Dazey, the local playboy, and Savina, a Satan-worshipping shoplifter. Joe, Savina, Dazey and Rosalyn, Dazey's girlfriend, are inextricably bound in a love, lust, obsession, insanity, death, guns and street drag racers.

Blue the colour of sadness, depression, gloom and doom follows Joe like a shadow from which he can not escape. It may be debated but for me the primary theme of this film was psychological. How the characters are affected by the presence of lack love in their lives. What happens when they reach breaking point. Relationships between fathers and sons, friends, and lovers are all examined. The psychological theme is also examined from the point of view of control. We see how the characters try to affect control on the world around and fail miserably while unintentionally setting chains of events in motion with ramifications for all those around them. The characters are trapped by there very nature, they can not change, and it is there failure to change and there failure to see and understand the world as it is, that inevitably leads to their fate.

Another prominent theme is of this Melbourne underworld, a world that is off balance, a place where the darker parts of the human mind are never far off. We are made to see, hear and feel this world. The director desire to document the marginalised, the outcast, the fringe-dwellers of society does not extend to offer hope, solutions, where there are none.

Director Geoffrey Wright is one of the very few directors are willing to go to the lengths that he does, refusing to tell a story that involves conventional moralities and cardboard characters, nor does he balk at portraying the violence perpetrated by these unhappy youths in their quest for identity and meaning. This is a disturbing film and not for the morally squeamish. The fact that the director dared to cast actors who are NOT the Matt Dillon or Brad Pitts of this world makes the characters of this film so believable. Even though Dazey is cast as "Matt Dillon" of this film it is quiet clear that he is a big fish in a very small pond. Remember this is not a story of the super cool and tough guys at the top, this is a story of the guys at the bottom. So relative to the situation and surroundings I would say that the characters are perfectly cast. Dazey might have been tougher but that would have made him too stereotyped and I feel that he is more of a playboy then a fighter.

The sounds and images of Metal Skin remained with me for many days after first viewing, and would return unbidden like dream fragments in the weeks that followed. The bleakness of the environment inhabited by Metal Skin's characters is emphasised by the almost complete lack of sunlight in the film; daytime scenes are shot against unforgiving grey skies, or at twilight, or in the rain. Industrial, dockside or suburban scenes are de-saturated of colour, with occasional flashes of maroon or lime green in the characters' clothing serving as occasional contrast. Much of the film is shot at night to emphasise the characters' separation from the mainstream and lack of interaction with "normal" city life; as their night work at the supermarket indicates, they are not even full members of the economy, but are marginal even here. Incessant and intrusive sound and visual editing and confounding time shifts, work to disorient the viewer and constantly put you on edge and into their world.

This movie gives a pretty good feeling about what's like for a rev head growing up in the lower socio-economic suburbs in Australian cities. There's Joe, who is a bit of a loser, and lives with his Migrant father who has lost his marbles, and there's Daisy - a guy who is the winner character in this movie - that was a race car driver in another state in Australia, but came back after an incident that you will find out about in the movie. These two characters meet at a grocery packing warehouse where they both work, and form a friendship based on the fact that they both drive old Australian built Chrysler cars - Joe a beat up station wagon with home made mods, and daisy a grungy modified charger with off the shelf performance parts. This movie has many facets - it has romance of a sort, lots of jealousy, racial tension, witchcraft/ satanism, real human drama, some really tense action, and a story line and a quality of acting that allows the audience to emphasize fully with the colorful characters. The car action isn't a huge part of the movie, but the quality of it is up there with Ronin, and The Fast and The Furious. Well worth a look in my opinion.

If you've ever thought that in order to qualify as an Australian all you had to do was grow a pony-tail, spend the day bodyboarding down the beach and then wind down by drinking light beer at a BBQ while listening to The Offspring and Weezer, then this film tells you that you would be dead wrong! This grungy coming-of-age tale set in Melbourne, makes it clear that Australia is not ONLY populated by people who spend weekends listening to Counting Crows while tossing dwarves down bowling alleys - they have awkward teens and devil worshipping goths like we have as well. This story centres on four lost souls, including a couple of gearheads and a female Satanist who are drawn together in a fragile friendship - jealousies soon get in the way and, to cut a long story short, it all ends in tears. It's a fairly downbeat movie overall, with little hope or joy for the characters but they are well drawn and well-acted by the principals. It seems to have won awards, while not winning audiences which is often the way in movies such as this which don't prioritize being crowd pleasers.

Few films in the teen genre truly deal with a core component of being young- recklessness and the aching yearning of the years after high school. Here is a film that does which was originally to be called "Speed" until a certain American flick stole the thunder. What that film could never steal is the intense agony and sprinkles of joy that this film so powerfully captures. Its the tale of Joe, a young aimless guy who just wants to do good, be in a relationship and enjoy life. Instead he finds himself ostracised because of his poverty and his fathers collapse. His passion is his car but its a rundown creature. Just as you think he's found friends and maybe a chance things spiral out of control. Featuring a great soundtrack featuring Nick Barker and some brilliant drag racing scenes, this film will both exhilirate and smash you up much like its subject matter. A brilliant cast and fiery direction make this a must see grungy

I saw this ages ago but I still remember how realistic,gripping and thought provoking it was.The character of Joe,a social misfit and race driver wanna-be was brilliantly portrayed and is still probably the best performance I have ever seen of somebody truly at the end of their rope and the director gives the film a very nightmarish look.At first glimpse,this will come across as depressing and off-putting,but the performances are really brilliant and the film overall is magnificent.