"Skin" is a 21-minute American live action short film from 2018 made by Guy Nattiv and Sharon Maymon. This one won the Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film one month ago and I think it was a bad decision. In my opinion, this is worse than all other four nominees, but I am not surprised the liberal Academy went for it as it is the only really political movie from the bunch if we ignore the same-sex reference in another. But now let me tell you why I think this was weak. First of all, the poster is misleading really. The Black kid plays almost no role in this movie at all, while the White (I am allowed to capitalize right?) kid plays a major role. He is the one whose looking and smiling at a toy started everything. He is the one that ends everything eventually when the credits roll in around the 20-minute mark. But it is not only a film about race, it is also about gun control and now it makes even more sense this won an Oscar. You will see how guns are used here on several occasions and I won't go much into detail about that. The only thing I liked about that aspect is how we have a boy holding up a snake and he is told to put it down while being instructed afterward to take a rifle in his hands as if that was something less dangerous. Well, I do not necessarily agree with the idea, but that was somewhat creative at least. There is more talk about snakes later on and which ones are more poisonous, the brighter or darker ones and that already felt a bit clumsy honestly the way they were trying to get race relations in there. Still I think, the first half of the film, maybe even the first 13 minutes or so were decent and I may have given them a higher rating thanks to the convincing portrayal by Jonathan Tucker, also by far the biggest name in the cast here. Basically until he gets dragged into that car and this could have been a surprisingly thriller moment had id not been indirectly spoilered here on imdb. But with the big plot twist in the second half, the film really hits rock-bottom. The idea of tattooing his skin all over so that he looks like a Black man was generally a really challenging approach and making the main character just seem as unlikable as it gets before that won't cut the cake, especially as indirectly the actions of the Black folks are depicted and described as accurate revenge. But it is the exact opposite in my opinion. This is a film that will not help in remving boundaries between races, but create more obstacles and I even have a feeling there people as dumb and simple out there that they may take this approach and idea of making racists or just Whites go through that hell again because they think they deserve to or just want the kick. At least not everybody has a professional tattoo artist education.
A few more words on the ending. The boy shoots and kills his father eventually mistaking him for an intruder. Does color matter in this context? Perhaps. He sure did not recognize him, but no matter which approach you give it it is once again showing a white man/kid shooting a helpless Black man without much substance to it than just hate. Funnily enough, the boy smiled early on at the Black man with the toy, so his perception changed completely because of these Black folks kidnapping his father and he may just develop into the same kind of racist that his dad was after shooting one of his own which he doesn't know at that point. I am almostg tempted to call this a dangerous movie. It is not creative, artistic or sobering. Just shocking for the sake of it and the final shot is the best example. I only give it a somewhat solid rating and won't declare it as a total failure because like I said the first half was okay overall. Also there is no elaboration what happened during the no less than 10 days he was there, how they gave him food, something to drink to deal with the pain. Or helped him get to the toiled. Also as someone who just got a new tattoo this year, let me tell you it won't take 10 days to make a skin 100% tattooed, so maybe speaking to actual experts on the matter would have helped. There doesn't need to be attention to detail when it is just all supposed to be Black. But attention to detail then again is not the film's greatest strength either. My recommendation here is to skip the watch. The Academy got it right in not going for the even worse and more misleading frontrunner "Black Sheep" in the Documentary Short category, but by giving the win to Skin (again, unsurprisingly), they clearly made the wrong decision. A bit unsurprisingly actually because I think all 4 other nominees got more awards recognition beforehand, but yeah politics won here, not artistic talent unfortunately. Watch something else instead.
A few more words on the ending. The boy shoots and kills his father eventually mistaking him for an intruder. Does color matter in this context? Perhaps. He sure did not recognize him, but no matter which approach you give it it is once again showing a white man/kid shooting a helpless Black man without much substance to it than just hate. Funnily enough, the boy smiled early on at the Black man with the toy, so his perception changed completely because of these Black folks kidnapping his father and he may just develop into the same kind of racist that his dad was after shooting one of his own which he doesn't know at that point. I am almostg tempted to call this a dangerous movie. It is not creative, artistic or sobering. Just shocking for the sake of it and the final shot is the best example. I only give it a somewhat solid rating and won't declare it as a total failure because like I said the first half was okay overall. Also there is no elaboration what happened during the no less than 10 days he was there, how they gave him food, something to drink to deal with the pain. Or helped him get to the toiled. Also as someone who just got a new tattoo this year, let me tell you it won't take 10 days to make a skin 100% tattooed, so maybe speaking to actual experts on the matter would have helped. There doesn't need to be attention to detail when it is just all supposed to be Black. But attention to detail then again is not the film's greatest strength either. My recommendation here is to skip the watch. The Academy got it right in not going for the even worse and more misleading frontrunner "Black Sheep" in the Documentary Short category, but by giving the win to Skin (again, unsurprisingly), they clearly made the wrong decision. A bit unsurprisingly actually because I think all 4 other nominees got more awards recognition beforehand, but yeah politics won here, not artistic talent unfortunately. Watch something else instead.