Metal Skin

Essentially a re-setting of the Arthurian stories in the context of an Australian subculture of lost, dope-addled car-obsessed young males, this is a compelling and disturbing look at how empty, disconnected lives can become focused on an arbitrary quest in order to find meaning. Cars playing 'chicken' substitutes for jousting, the quest for the ultimate turbo charger replaces the Holy Grail, a spell-casting bogan witch girl takes the role of Morgan Le Fay. The title probably comes from the line in John Boorman's equally bizarre Arthurian movie "Excalibur" - When Arthur questions whether Lancelot should leave his lands and people to serve him, Lancelot points to his armour and says "I gave up my castles, and my lands - my domain is here, inside this metal skin". Similarly the characters here are totally cut off from their families and any other human emotional connection, they carry their entire world around inside the metal skins of their cars.

What I remember about this movie after seeing it, was I wasn't a happy camper. Set in Melbourne, in dark dismal tones is a story of 4 messed up, disowned twenties sorts, well acted by all, especially the 'so underrated, it's no joke' Morice, as a real introverted, weird Ally Sheedy, Breakfast Club character. Garner has grown as an actress too, who just got better and better after this. Actually voted the most depressing film back in it's day, I don't remember any blood at all being shed, but the movie which I've only seen once, and I had been warned by others who had seen it, not to, just became an overlong bore. I wasn't affected or didn't care about the four twenty plus types, who did have the share of problems. I didn't care about the parents of these young adults who had nonchalant attitudes, hence their pride and joys, evolving like they have. No character in the movie was memorable, more dislikeable. The one thing I loved about Metal Skin besides it's title, was it's soundtrack. If separately rating this, I'd give it a nine, unlike it's movie which does have a strong intensity about it, in those four going nowhere characters, isolated from everyone around them, who'd you'd wanna shoot most of them. These four are the only real family, they've got. This is a disappointing feature in light of director Wright's still most powerful and best film, Romper Stomper.

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.

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.

As an admirer of Wright's earlier work "Romper Stomper" (certainly not ideologically, just as an interesting film), I must say that I enjoyed this film just as much, even though it is equally disturbing.

The story concerns a group of people in their early twenties. Joe, who lives with his insane father, gets a job at a wholesale warehouse where he meets Dazey, the local Don Juan, and Savina, a Satan-worshipping shoplifter. Joe, Savina, Dazey and Rosalyn, Dazey's girlfriend, are inextricably bound in a tangle of love, lust, insanity, death, and hot rodding.

This film is of a largely unexplored genre; "teen movies" about love-sick young stars just don't work anymore, and Wright reminds us of that fact with gritty characters and realistic dialogue. 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. Not for the morally squeamish, but definitely worth watching.