Mark Reviews Movies: THE MAN WHO SOLD HIS SKIN

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Review by Mark Dujsik | April 1, 2021

In The Man Who Sold His Skin, a biting satire of the art world almost becomes a potent allegory about the worth of human life. Writer/director Kaouther Ben Hania's film is bursting with moral, ethical, and political ideas, and even though its story doesn't follow through on them in a particularly satisfying way, here's a film that gets us thinking, considering on the state of our world, and, because the parable at the core doesn't seem too far-fetched and reflects reality in a specific way, infuriated.

As unlikely as it may seem, Ben Hania's screenplay is inspired by a true story, and some of the seemingly ludicrous details are more authentic than we might believe possible. The filmmaker, though, changes up a key aspect of the real story, making the film a decidedly political one, and expands upon other details. Basically, a man from Zurich entered into a contract with an artist, giving the artist his back to be used as a canvass. We'll leave it at that, because what happened in reality eventually becomes the foundation of what happens in the film.

In this fictionalized version of the story, Ben Hania turns the man from Switzerland into one from Syria, living under the harsh rule of an authoritarian government just before conflict erupts. He's Sam Ali (Yahya Mahayni), who's in love with Abeer (Dea Liane). Her family is wealthy. His and he are not.

Abeer's mother is trying to arrange a marriage for her daughter to Ziad (Saad Lostan), a diplomat working out of the Syrian embassy in Belgium, and in an act of frustration and affection, Sam pronounces his love for Abeer on a public train. "This is a revolution," he yells. Sam is quickly detained by the authorities, escapes, and, after it becomes clear that Abeer has no intention of running away with him, flees to Beirut to start a new life.

A year passes. Abeer has married Ziad and moved to Brussels. Sam is working in a poultry plant, living in an apartment with a roommate (played by Jan Dahdoh), and sneaking into swanky parties at local art galleries for free food. At one of those soirees, Sam is spotted by Soraya (Monica Bellucci), the personal assistant of a famous and controversial artist. Jeffrey (Koen De Bouw), the artist, has a new work in mind, and Sam will be the perfect canvass, medium, and subject of the piece.

It is, as one may have gathered, a great tattoo, covering the entirety of Sam's back. The picture is that of a Schengen visa, which gives the holder free reign to travel around almost all of Europe. This visa, Jeffrey points out, would have been almost impossible for Sam to obtain on his own. As a work of art, though, Sam has become both a person and a commodity. It is much easier under the law for a piece of merchandise to travel freely than it is for a human being—especially a refugee.

That's the big idea—a clever paradox, a pointed statement about the value of things over that of living people in society, a seemingly philanthropic loophole in the law—of both Jeffrey's work and Ben Hania's film. For Sam, this initially looks like freedom. Jeffrey, having heard Sam's sad story about Abeer, has arranged for a display of his new piece at a gallery in Brussels. This is the chance Sam needs to set things right, re-unite with Abeer, and return his life to path he had planned.

Ben Hania, though, is concerned with the array of moral, ethical, and philosophical problems this arrangement brings with it. Is Sam still a person? Of course, he is, but he is also, just as the artist has stated, a commodity. There are shows to run, schedules to follow, and, most importantly, money to be made and exchanged for such a unique and novel work of art, which also, as people increasingly seem to forget, is a person with a life to live, dreams to accomplish, and basic desires and needs to fulfill.

For a while, the film digs into this conflict with admirable insight and no small amount of compassion. Sam's romance—the apparently doomed party in a love triangle—grounds the character, as too does Mahayni's performance, which becomes more stoic as Sam's status as a piece of art becomes the greater concern for everyone involved. We know enough about the man to know him as a person. It's just enough, considering Ben Hania's intentions are more far-reaching than the drama of Sam's life, and it's a lot more than characters in the story seem to realize.

Sam is scolded at by a security guard when a student on a field trip wants to know a bit about him, and his role as an entity, not a person, only becomes worse from there. He sits in exhibition halls, where people stare or laugh at him. Jeffrey and Soraya drop the pretense of making a statement and start treating Sam as a piece of merchandise—images of his back being sold on T-shirts and, eventually, the back itself, as well the rest of body containing it, becoming the target of a bidding war. The story seems to be heading toward some inevitable outcome, founded upon all of these disquieting ideas, so Ben Hania has to manufacture a few too many contrivances to arrive at a completely different resolution.

Still, the film mostly works as a cutting commentary on social, cultural, and political hypocrisy. The Man Who Sold His Skin is absurd enough that it feels allegorical, but it's also honest enough about human behavior, the political climate, and systems of commerce that Ben Hania's points land with righteous ire.

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