Sometimes a movie completely surprises you, leads you in a direction you don’t expect. Deerskin was one such film. Georges’ journey is ridiculous, hilarious, demented, shocking. But suddenly, as Denise sees Georges for who he truly is, through the camera, through the jacket, through the veil he’s so clumsily designed, she sees a lonely, dejected man. In this moment, you realize what the movie is truly about, where we’re being led.
Denise encourages Georges to embrace his art, to become one with his character, to embody the protagonist of a movie he doesn’t even know how to make. What does this signal? What has the message become? This film, that could have so easily been about a man whose loneliness drives him further and further into lunacy, or about the woman who unknowingly beckons a psychological breakdown, suddenly finds Georges a supporter, someone who encourages him to finally become something more—become something. Denise’s quiet complicity, her knowing stare as she relaxedly-yet-obstinately pushes Georges to embrace a figure he clearly fears, teeters on the edge of sheer insanity. She’s driven mad by the prospect of creating great art that inspires someone to live a greater life, even in the face of committing murder.
On paper, it’s outrageous and absurd. Yet, this dynamic never feels fake. The movie doesn’t jump through hoops to create a monster. Keeping in step with everything I’ve seen so far from Quentin Dupieux, the story neatly nestles into what it was all along: a truly cinematic tale, meta in its direct engagement with the audience, stripped from the confines of what’s expected. The film has been edited together exactly as is by the filmmaker, by the editor, by the people behind the camera and behind the scenes envisioning their piece of art, with the intention of making a statement about loneliness, about what happens to us when we feel invisible. It is realized, it is penetrating, it is unnervingly insightful. And it is, as it should be, scary as hell.
