FFFA 2024 Review - Metal Skin (2K Restoration)
Images courtesy of Original Spin.
Metal Skin: a bleak insight into masculine rev-head obsession
“All girls like cars that go fast. All you gotta do is go fast.” This questionable statement underpins Australian 1994 thriller film Metal Skin and its main characters, Joe and Dazey, as the two young men from opposite sides of the tracks search for fulfillment in fast cars and unrequited love.
Laced with disenchanted youth, muscle cars and satanism, Metal Skin is an oppressive and extremely bleak film, as it careens from one tragedy to the next, leaving the characters and audience with little hope for the future.
Written and directed by Geoffrey Wright following his successful 1992 film Romper Stomper, Metal Skin is set in the streets of Melbourne in the mid 1990’s. Awkward, scruffy outcast Joe (Aden Young), who lives in squalor on the outskirts of Melbourne, is the sole carer for his mentally-ill father and a caged, screeching cockatoo.
Joe’s new job at a supermarket introduces him to the carnal and confident Dazey (played by an engrossing Ben Mendelsohn). Despite the sex appeal of his luscious, black mullet and leather jackets, Dazey is an outcast in his own way, pushed to the side by his father and brother, who is a competitive driver. He has a strained relationship with “the girl he wants the most”, the reserved Roslyn (Nadine Garner).
Joe, envious of how Dazey is “good with girls”, is also attracted to Roslyn, who pays him little attention. Despite the thinly veiled animosity over the two’s mutual love interest, Joe and Dazey’s relationship blossoms into a friendship over a shared love of muscle-cars.
With Dazey’s encouragement, Joe turns his affection to satanic-worshiping colleague Savina (Tara Morice). Joe attempts to woo Savina with a late night drag race at the abandoned rail yard, but it proves unsuccessful, as Savina is intent on using her satanic powers to lure Dazey.
When Joe catches Dazey having sex with Savina, his fragile psyche starts to crack. As Joe becomes more and more isolated, the rage simmering inside him finally explodes, sending him into a violent rampage.
Metal Skin is unmistakably a Melbourne film, with Wright, a proud Melburnian, using the western suburbs of Spotswood and Yarraville, as well as the former industrial area of Docklands, as his desolate backdrop.
It’s a gruelling, 112 minute experience, as viewers are taken on a full-throttle journey with little optimism and littered with tragedy. The film’s frenetic, fragmented editing leaves viewers puzzled whether the scene is a memory or a premonition. Coupled with the unsettling soundtrack and occasional eerie voiceover, the film jangles frayed nerves as the characters accelerate to their tragic fates.
The main characters have minimal redeeming qualities, with their collective trauma drawing the singular emotion of sympathy. Roslyn and Savina are particularly one-dimensional, simply designed as objects for Joe and Dazey’s desires, while the two young men bond with either a VB in hand or under the hood of a car.
While Metal Skin may be uncomfortable or even unenjoyable viewing, it is a compelling, edge of your seat story of Australia’s male-dominated, rev-head culture, where burnt rubber and women who love fast cars are drivers of the male fantasy. When those fantasies aren’t realised, violence is not far from the surface.
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The 2K Restoration of Metal Skin is screening as part of Fantastic Film Festival Australia 2024. The festival runs from the 17th of April to the 10th of May, check out the festival website for tickets and more info here.