More than 10 years since I first saw writer/director Chris Newby’s Madagascar Skin at a gay film festival, its stunning, wordless opening sequence has remained seared within my memory. Re-watching this 1995 forgotten gem for the first time in a rich, clean transfer on DVD (it had an unimpressive VHS release some years back), it’s exactly as I recall.
Let me describe that first scene: a cavernous gay bar, the music pulses, as do the sweaty muscle boys. A lone figure, Harry (John Hannah), drifts amongst them trying to connect but is only dismissed with chilly stares and silent snubs. The reason? Harry’s face is stained by a Madagascar-shaped, wine-colored birthmark. After a few rejections too many, Harry makes a suicidal drive towards the sea, but his auto is stopped just short of the water by a large rock. Stranded and isolated, Harry finds peace—but he’s not alone for long. While walking along the beach he discovers an unconscious man buried in the sand, Flint (Bernard Hill), and rescues him. The pair takes up residence in an abandoned house and forges a friendship. Rough-around-the-edges, womanizing, and quite possibly a career thief, Flint amuses the bitter Harry by consuming all sorts of unsavory critters and objects (including spiders and broken lightbulbs). And Harry, whose birthmark is a non-issue for the perpetually upbeat and self-assured Flint, falls in love…
An unlikely romance and meditation on the markings we bear, Madagascar Skin is also very much an art film. The art direction, delivered on a tight budget, is spectacular and stylized. There are surreal cinematic flourishes a la queer cinema pioneer Derek Jarman—notably dream sequences in which Harry imagines Flint working aboard a ship—and a theatrical quality to the dialogue. The visuals are painterly, brilliantly framed and textured (especially that superb opening sequence!), while the sound design is equally thought out and spectacular, small details accentuated for tension and urgency, and silence indicating daydream passages.
Scottish thesp Hannah, who previously played gay in Four Weddings and a Funeral, has fine chemistry with the crude yet charming and humorous Hill (after eating a dead mouse, Flint quips, ‘ah—mousse!’). Their characters’ courtship is by turns strained and sweet. Alas, Newby hasn’t made any features since (his first, 1993’s Anchoress, is also available on DVD), nor do I know where he is today, but one of his previous short films, 1991’s experimental Flicker, is included here.
Newby’s a true auteur, and while this isn’t a new queer cinema classic per se, it certainly gets—and remains—under your skin.