Blue Skin

Taboos ’n’ tattoos… Three old gents get their love of epidermal doodles off their extensively inky chests as they remember ’60s Hamburg, first encounters with the needle, personal sorrows, a feud, old age and social prejudice. And more. One reckons each tat is ‘connected to a memory’; another can’t recall exactly how many female forms adorn his hide (nor what’s on his back). Co-director Ruts has the skin-tincturing skills himself, which must have helped win the trust of his subjects; still, it’s the apparent lack of an authorial hand that makes this melancholy investigation of mortality – ink or no ink, you rarely see this much aged flesh on screen – such a winning piece of anthropology.