This February, Israeli director Guy Nativ received an Oscar for his short film SKIN (2018), which is about the passing on of racist hatred from generation to generation. The feature-length film SKIN includes some of the scenes and motifs of the short, but tells a different story. Jamie Bell plays skinhead Bryon Widner, who was raised to become the crown prince of Nazi terrorist group “Vinlanders Social Club“ by a backwoods neo-Nazi couple before he leaves the scene with the help of Black activist Daryle Jenkins. Widner‘s face is covered by many tattoos and the film begins with the first of many operations he undergoes to get rid of the Nazi symbols on his skin. The story is told in a long flashback. Widner‘s exit begins when he meets single mother Julie (Danielle Macdonald), who lets her three daughters perform Teutonic kitsch with a ukulele at a Nazi gathering. At first their relationship doesn‘t make it clear whether Bryon‘s lifestyle or attitudes need to change. Julie also has a swastika on her thigh…

SKIN is an extremely suspenseful psychological thriller that shows that the permanent violence, systematic brutalization, and complete subjugation in a hierarchical terror system is at the root of the Nazi lifestyle. But the subjugation also exists at different levels. Julie and Bryon drink, but they drink beer rather than schnapps. Bryon has no problem wth physical violence, but he does with murder. Jamie Bell and Danielle Macdonald‘s intense and present acting carries every scene, Bell especially succeeds in letting traces of humanity pierce through under the Nazi visage.

Hannes Stein (INDIEKINO MAGAZIN)

Translation: Elinor Lewy