The film is all about his shoulders, or rather his back. From the object woman to the object man. He was thrown into a cell in Syria because he praised freedom. Escape to the West, meet a famous unscrupulous artist. Who puts it on display, tattooing the visa on the passport on the back of the victim. It is the exchange they have made. He “buys” it, transforms it into a work of art. In return, he gets him the documents. The visa becomes a trophy.
It happens in «The man who sold his skin», Political allegory by the Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania who closes the Rendez-Vous review in Rome. The film earned Yahya Mahayni the award for best actor in the Horizons section of the last Venice Film Festival. He is actually a Syrian lawyer in his first film living in France: «I grew up in Damascus, Montreal and Paris, I specialize in international arbitration and I teach law. I had taken part in amateur shorts. As a child I was obsessed with “New Cinema Paradiso “ by Tornatore. I hope to continue being an actor. My dream is to act in Neapolitan ».
His character is Sam Ali. He wants to reach women in Europe who loves, knows the artist and asks him for help. He will realize that his decision can mean anything but freedom. Sam Ali becomes a hostage to himself, like a painting that does not detach from the wall, a zoo animal. Monica Bellucci, all blonde, is Soraya, the artist’s haughty press secretary who unabashedly says in one scene: “Maybe this way, with your visa on display, you’ll be able to travel.” “Monica is the opposite of a snobbish calculator.”
shadow carousel
«The Man Who Sold His Skin», the political tale that touched the Oscar
His back is sold at auction for 5 million euros. The idea the director was born while she was in the Louvre, in a retrospective dedicated to the Belgian artist Wim Delvoye, where she saw the living work Tim: he had tattooed the back of a Swiss named Tim Steiner. Steiner was seated in a shirtless armchair and displayed the artist’s drawing, a Madonna surmounted by a Mexican-style skull (when he dies, the skin will be removed and framed). The work was sold to a private individual in 2008 and travels the world in exhibitions. The same will happen to the protagonist of the film, transformed into a piece of art with the signature of the devil.
“His back is no longer his property – says the actor – but he has it decided freely, driven by love for his woman, by despair, by ambition. In the throes of a harrowing internal conflict, he tries to regain his dignity and freedom ». The film involves manipulation, paradox, dehumanization, desecration. How much is a human life worth? «For me, it is not a film about refugees but an analysis of the hypocrisy of human nature and the world of contemporary art (of which I have never been a fan) supported by capitalist paradigms. This story is the meeting of two closed worlds governed by completely different codes: art, an elitist environment in which freedom is the key word; and refugees which is a reality of survival. Despite all the talk of equality, there are two categories of people: the privileged and the damned.
The film mixes drama, satire, romance, dark humor, and it is a Faustian pact between them. Sam Ali agrees to sell his back to the devil because he has no choice. ‘
June 12, 2021 (change June 16, 2021 | 07:58)
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