Skinflicker

Skinflicker is about the kidnapping and assassination of a government minister (Barry), intended as a symbolic revolutionary act by three dissidents. The entire event is filmed by the kidnappers themselves on 8mm colour stock, and (by arrangement with them, to secure a more objective record) by a blue movie cameraman on 16mm black-and-white sound stock; and the whole is presented as part of a secret government training film. Howard Brenton's script is thus masterly in deploying the low-budget at his disposal, with the silent colour footage used to underline the extremity of the violence, and the dialogue in the black-and-white footage revealing the near-insane elation of the protagonists (brilliantly edgy, unnerving performances from Knightley and Woolf). Bicat's sure direction fails only in the rather heavy-handed opening sequence, and in the capture of the minister (it's too cleanly shot amid the confusion, and you sometimes wonder who is supposed to be holding the camera, which erodes the documentary reality). A fascinating experiment nevertheless, even if what it's trying to say remains obscure.