A Ship of Human Skin

I don't know what to say about this film, other than it is hauntingly beautiful. I suspect it began as a stage play, as the locations are almost incidental.

Two women are friends. Unnaturally close but mismatched, Jeannie is the deep thinker, Saribeth her adult child friend. They drift further from society, living and dealing drugs and working in a brothel as an experiment in clear thinking, each spending time in custody (represented by ritualistic movements in a split screen), then Jeannie goes to rehab but Oral, their dealer / pimp uses Saribeth to draw her back. Jeannie has changed, though, and the film turns darker.

Apart from the split screen, there are elements of histrionic and childlike behaviour from Saribeth, minor characters taking turns in the spotlight, even a musical interlude. The whole thing plays out like a documentary, with segments for anyone who came into contact with Jeannie, and high comedy involving (separately) a prison officer and an Internet shopper.

There are religious and philosophical diversions, but never overwhelmingly so, and a sense of not one but many unreliable narrators. I have watched it twice in two days and will watch it again. It tells a tale of hard scrabble lives but never without beauty or compassion. It leaves us - me, at least - with more questions than answers, but I do not resent that. I feel I have been on a journey with some wrong turns and dead ends, but with a destination that made it all worthwhile.

Just please don't ask me what it is 'about'.

God save me from more Gravitas films.

Made for about 6 bucks, this is a pointless attempt to make an arthouse horror. What we end up with just nonsensical script and plot punctuated by split screen, stop motion dancing.

If 'challenging' movies are your thing then have at it. Myself, I have some life to be getting on with.