The Man Who Sold His Skin (2020)
(film 100 minutes)
Language: Arabic, English, French
Rating: 4/10 | Yaser Tohidi
June 12, 2021
A Belgian artist Jeffrey and a Syrian refugee Sam come across each other in Lebanon and sign a controversial deal. Sam lets Jeffrey tattoo a Schengen visa on his back and agrees to be present in his exhibitions in Europe for a definite time as an object of art. Instead Jeffrey makes sure Sam receives a Schengen visa and comes to Europe where his girlfriend Abeer, now unhappily married to a staff of Syrian embassy, lives and works as a translator. Soon as he arrives Europe Sam finds the same play of powers there and although sometimes he tries to breach the laws of society, he realizes the clichés are stronger. Besides it seems getting back to Abeer is not as easy as he thought it would be. Jeffrey comes again with his brilliant ideas. He makes a fake story; Sam goes back to Syria, he is killed there by extremists as a coward and traitor who sells dignity for liberty, and his skin is sold in black market. This fake story is of course bought easily because media/public is used to hearing terrible news from Syria and it is not easy to ratify the truth considering the circumstances there. So Sam is believed dead and his skin should be recovered from black market and be kept in national museums. Jeffrey himself of course takes care of the skin replica. This is while the true story is that Sam and Abeer are living together no one knows where with their new identities.
The Man Who Sold His Skin shows not only the indifference towards the difficulties faced by the Syrian people but also it criticizes the western societies/politics for their hypocrisy on human rights and dignity of certain outsiders and for their obsessive devotion to pleasure and richness.
