DVD...

Skin...

2000
Directed by: Asia Argento
Written by: Asia Argento
Produced by: Claudio Argento, Dario Argento, Gianluca Curti, Adriana Chiesa DiPalma, John Sirabella
Studio: Opera Film

Starring:
Asia Argento .... Anna Battista
Jean Shepard .... Kirk Vaines
Vera Gemma .... Veronica
Fabio Camilli .... Pierre
Joe Coleman .... Mr. Paar
Selen .... Quelou (as Luce Caponegro Selen)
Herbert Fritsch .... Aaron
Justinian Kfoury .... J-Bird
Vanessa Crane .... Luke
Daria Nicolodi .... Anna's Mother
Schooly-D .... Hash-Man (as Schoolly D.)
Alessandro Villari .... Hamid

Asia Argento's stars in Scarlet Diva, which is also her writing and directorial debut for a full length film. She had helmed a couple of award winning shorts in Italy, but this is her first time taking on a feature length film.

Asia Argent has only recently been known in the U.S., having starred opposite Vin Diesel in XXX which was released in 2002. Prior to that she had starred in, and won awards for, roles she has had in Italian films. Her father is the famed Italian horror director, Dario Argento, and her mother is the actress and writer, Daria Nicolodi. Asia has starred in three of her fathers films, Trauma (1993), The Stendhal Syndrome (1996) and The Phantom of the Opera (1998). Her dad also helped produce this film and her mother has a small role in it.

The story is about an young actress in Italy, Anna Battista (Asia Argento), who is basically trying to make sense of her nonsensical world and also trying to find meaning and love. She has no shortage of friends, but most of them are drug addicts or just using her for whatever they can get. Which is mostly drugs, sex and money.

It is a semi-autobiographical movie and I wonder how it was for her parents to be involved in a where where their daughter takes a lot of drugs and is naked and has sex with a lot of men and women. There are several hallucinatory drug scenes that are mildly interesting, but drag on a bit. And you certainly get to see a lot of Asia and her tattoos. In a flashback scene, Daria Nicolodi plays the young Anna's mother and I learned in the commentary that the scene was filmed in Asia's old bedroom at her fathers house. The room is covered in pictures and looks like a a typical, adolescent girls room.

There is one sequence that really impressed me, but it had more to do with the actor playing opposite Asia in the scene. Anna Battista is talking with her agent in a hotel lobby after winning an acting award. A U.S. producer, Mr. Paar (Joe Coleman), comes up and acts like he is interested in Anna's idea for a movie. He gets her to go up to his room and strips down to a robe and tries to force himself on Anna. She makes it out of the room and he runs down the hall screaming, naked except for his cowboy boots! It really is well done and Joe Coleman is perfectly cast in this role. One interesting thing from the commentary is that when Mr. Paar shows Anna a script, it is by Gus Van Zandt. Asia says that she used that name because she can't stand him as a director and that she thinks he "stinks"! That made me laugh out loud.

There is a lot of interesting use of color and scenery, but that is no surprise as her father is a master of color and lighting effects in films. Over all it is pretty well made, and I am impressed with it as it comes from a young woman and is her first try at making a movie, but it is a bit juvenile in parts and at times I just wanted to yell at the character and say "what did you expect for hanging out with such a loser!"

The dvd is released by Media Blasters (www.media-blasters.com) and they have a small list of anime and Japanese titles on their distribution list. After looking at their website it would seem that getting Scarlet Diva was a bit of a coup for them. The dvd contains a commentary track and interview with Asia, stills, and a few movie trailers. The movie is in both Italian and English, as Asia speaks English in a lot of the scenes with other English speaking actors, though there are optional subtitles for the bits that were shot in Italian. The soundtrack is kind of a heavy metal/euro beat mix that is pretty applicable throughout the movie.

I was really looking forward to this release and I am glad I got it, but I am also glad it was on sale for $15 at Fry's Electronics when I got it. Pretty good movie, lots of skin, you get to see how rich and privilieged young Europeans acts when there are no curbs or restraints on their behavior, and Asia Argent is really quite good as an actress and I think she will be around for a long time.

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