No Skin Off My Ass

Unfortunately the merits of this curiousity are outweighed by it's faults. Most notably the excessively grainy black and white photography and the interminably dull scenes of body-piercing. The director may have been trying to shock, but the result is just boring and annoying. Although this film is as graphic as any hard-core pornography, it is also very un-sexy. The scenes are merely graphic for the sake of being graphic. Finally the flaccid performance of Mr. LaBruce leaves a great deal to be desired. The supporting cast is more interesting to look at (all the dialogue is badly over-dubbed). Still and all, it is an interesting experiment and worth seeing at least once.

Bruce LaBruce's attempts at artistic flair instead look more like pompous, wanna-be shock conjecture that goes nowhere. The saddest thing is that this film could have actually been quite good, if done properly. The grainy stock of the film (8mm blown up to 16mm) is quite appropriate at times, unfortunately LaBruce's inept ability to edit a film (yes, he actually edited this too) leaves much to be desired as what appears at first glance to be French new-wave inspired film making actually is a mere coincidence of defaults (just because it's low budget doesn't make it good). The over-dubbing of the dialogue is unbearable, as is the photographer's inability to work a camera. Moreover, while the idea of defamiliarizing a nazi skinhead into an object of queer attraction is funny and perhaps a good jab at the overtly masculine subculture, it goes into dangerous grounds because it attempts to fetishize (and subsequently, aestheticize) fascism, subversion, and male dominance in it's most homophobic sense. However, this may be too extreme of an analysis, as the film's inability to perform even the most intermediate of tasks renders it property basic and devoid of any possible artistic interpretation. Stay away from this at all costs. It's that bad.

I read someone saying The Dreamers was not just about showing people naked and this was, whoever wrote this is a complete idiot. The Dreamers was a terrible film, a sad fantasy of an aging man that used to be a great director, it was insulting to the sixties revolution, the sexual revolution and a film that over explained everything assuming spectators are stupid and furthermore and insult to the French. The dreamers is a horrible commercial film for hypocritical people who are scared and ashamed of their sexual desires. But it was a great idea to compare the two films, just because No Skin off My Ass has the same themes than the Dreamers but didn't fail at what it was all about : ideology, cinema, desire, redemption, being lost and love.

No Skin Off My Ass on the other hand is the equivalent of a punk fanzine, it's highly political, has a subtle subtext and contrarily to The dreamers is completely embracing it's time : the nineties. A period of time where people were terrified of skin heads, was battling against the aids during the aids holocaust and believed grunge punk rock could save the world. It's got style and great aesthetics, and despite being cheap it's unashamedly pure cinema : the inside swimming pool, basically a flooded flat, it's fetishist, licking doc martens to the sound of Nico's rendition of the German national anthem. There's lots of references to ancient cinema, visually, Lubitsch, Pabst and Von Stroheim while sharing those directors themes of predilection.

"Raspberry Reich" was very much advertised upon international film festival and packed viewing venues in full with folks from different preferential walks of life.

Dynamism and rough context left no viewer indifferent and understandably stipulated further curiosity to Labruce's movies.

Hopefully, "No skin off my ass" was a very good exercise on a way to "White Hustle" and above mentioned "Raspberry Reich".

The following text is just for fulfilling IMDb request on a minimum of a ten line text to be submitted: one two three four five six.

Thank you for considering my opinion.

Bruce La Bruce is a bad boy Canadian filmmaker who uses his queer sensibilities (some would say obsessions) in every movie he makes. In this film he's fallen for a cute skin head and obsessed with the whole skinhead movement as well as having an obsession with body piercing.

As obvious as it is that this was made on a painfully small budget, the film is strangely interesting from beginning to end. Why is it that this film holds the attention with very little plot when so many other indie films scream film school and put the viewer to sleep?

If you aren't offended by the whole gay milieu and don't mind seeing a bit of graphic fellatio in a movie then you might find this interesting. Klaus von Buecker plays the cute skinhead and is very easy to watch. (No more so than Tony Ward in La Bruce's later Hustler White) It's rawer and grainier than his later Hustler White but interesting in much the same way.