I have not read the book so my comments have only to do with the film. I was deeply, deeply impressed and moved by this film. This ranks among the best movies I've seen in the last several years, including "Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN", "ETERNAL SUNSHINE" and "PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE".<br /><br />The film has a tone that is totally original, bizarre, and dreamily beautiful. It is frank, candid, unexpectedly brutalizing...and, just as often, unexpectedly funny, strange...and even (so strange to admit) uplifting. I say strange, because this movie is more hard-core than any American film I've seen since, perhaps, "Happiness". And yet it's so much more heartfelt, kind-hearted, and yes, even "loving", than that aforementioned hyper-toxic indictment of New Jersey suburbia.<br /><br />"Mysterious Skin" has scenes and images that I don't think I'll soon forget. It also has bizarre parallels and clues that didn't occur to me until hours after I'd seen it. SPOILER: For example, The scene where Brian is compelled to slide his hand up into the body cavity of a dead deer. WOW. The context is shattering.<br /><br />The scenes involving pedophilia were unbelievably potent and disturbing. I don't know how Araki managed to shoot these sequences while retaining the innocence of such young, innocent performers. I mean, it comes as close to kiddie-porn as anything I've seen on film. And yet Araki handles it with such grace, strangeness, and "you-are-there" subjectivity, there's no way you can dismiss it as pornography. The perfect amount of restraint. The perfect amount of revulsion and confusion mixed with the tragic sexuality of the moment. I can easily see this movie being banned in various places. Oh well, that is the world we live in. Whoever dismisses this film without seeing it, it is their sad loss. This is the wisest, bravest, most honest and heartbreaking portrayal of childhood trauma ever put on film.<br /><br />Joseph Gordon-Levitt is AMAZING in this film. It's like he rose from the world of TV sitcoms to become, all at once, the best young actor working in film today. Seriously. No hyperbole here. He has everything he needs to be the next De Niro. The effortless body language, those impenetrable eyes, his turn-on-a-dime delivery. He is THAT GOOD. I read somewhere, someone comparing him to a young Colin Farrell. Please. The kid's only 22 and he's already 10 times the actor Farrell is. He's so good, in fact, that he could very well be a teen hustler from an HBO documentary. Beyond realism. Levitt completely lives in the "mysterious skin" of his character.<br /><br />I'll comment on one other scene, and yeah, I'm gonna SPOIL it, but don't worry, it's not much of a spoiler. This scene really blew me away.<br /><br />Neil (Levitt) has just picked up a John, played by Billy Drago. (You'll probably recognize this guy...he's super-creepy looking, and yet also terrifyingly cool & inscrutable...he played Capone's main henchman Frank Nitti in THE UNTOUCHABLES) He joins the John back at his stark-white apartment, and a scene which seems destined for tension, dread and horror...suddenly becomes beautiful, incredibly sad, and transcendent. To the point where, after this scene, I realized I wasn't just watching a "cool" Sundance Indie...I wasn't just watching a Gregg Araki film... I wasn't catching the latest "trendy indie" at the Sunset 5 in west Hollywood, surrounded by hipsters and shock-hounds. I was, in fact, witnessing a movie that transcended all of these fashionable labels. It only happens once in a blue moon, but when I saw this film, it definitely happened: I realized I was watching a work of art.