Skin (2019)

Amongst the bestrewed contents of a tight-cornered apartment, a cold draft exhales from a defunct window sill. The leak of frigid air amplifies the restlessness of an unnamed woman. She tightens and contorts beneath her thin bed sheet, fighting to escape back to her slumber, but it is hopeless. The exterior world soon comes knocking as a battered cell phone alarms on the bedside table. Her bones tremble and stomach knots. She hesitantly answers, delivering an unrecognizable but otherwise nervous conversation into her bed pillow. Hanging up the phone she knocks over a glass of water on her nightstand. Hanging off her mattress, listless and defeated, we observe her distorted through the empty glass. The woman, involuntarily thrust into the undesired day, removes her bed sheet, exposing her full self to the escaping current. Her hands outreach, examining and stretching her perceived-imperfect body. In attempt to escape her self-torture, she flicks on the television across the room. It illuminates into the overdramatized expressions of a silent film star. The woman inflates and deflates her stomach, hiding and exposing the picture as well as her exaggerated impersonations of the character on screen. The woman soon finds herself in the bathroom, face to face with her nefarious reflection. Over her head, the bathroom heat lamp illuminates the space red. At her feet, the space between the floor and the bathroom door lets in the gelid draft. The tub runs, emitting a black fluid, like development liquid, into the porcelain bath. Soon, the liquid is overflowing onto the woman's feet. The woman sinks into the now still tub, and the picture sinks into an eclectic montage of distorted images; flesh pressing against glass, lights swinging to create twisted expressions, and skin stretching impossibly across the black. We return to the woman to find her arm hanging out of the tub. From there we continue through the woman's morning routine as she angelically strolls through her now Edenic apartment, captured by a series of distorted shots. We finally catch up with her as she hesitates at her apartment door. Her cell phone illuminates the interior of her pocket repeatedly. We slowly focus, from a completely blurred image to one of complete clarity, seeing the woman fully for the first time. She wears a mask of makeup, but is empty and drained underneath. Eventually, she has no choice but to exit. As the door slams behind her, solidifying her departure, we float backwards through the apartment, now feeling colder than ever, and landing on a lifeless, deflated arm, extended from the bathroom, as if the flesh beneath it had been removed.