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YouTube is full of a lot of rubbish and the odd piece that’s interesting, and True Skin falls into the latter category. If you have 6 minutes and 15 seconds, you have time to watch this short.
It’s a future cyberpunk noir, even with a city bathed in light. Very quickly we’re advised of the setup. In the future, no one wants to stay purely organic. People who are straight organic get diseases, they get old, they die—and they are exploited. We see diseased, old, poor organic people. We even see mechanical spiders trying to harvest bits from an unconscious organic person.
We soon learn that the future is a dangerous place—and the way to get ahead or survive is through enhancement. And we see these enhancements in vast numbers. They are not one-size-fits-all, and a good deal of imagination is expended on the various bits of metal, plastic, and neon light that replace arms and legs and show up on faces. Some can buy the best; some can only afford or otherwise acquire what barely works.
The variation seems ad hoc, but as you watch, something in your brain (or my brain, anyway) will keep looking at the differences and cataloging what they might mean. And if you look carefully, you do see the social lines involved in this division between those who can afford the best and those who can’t.
It’s quickly done, well done—and the plot fits into that.
An immense need (legitimate or not) coupled with a lack of money will lead to crime. That’s what happens to the protagonist in this story (played by writer/director Stephan Zlotescu). He needs an enhancement, so he steals a chip and discovers that it’s experimental. He is running. Agents are after him because he has the chip. If they get him, they’ll pull it out and he’s gone. He’s running for his artificial life.
He goes to Bangkok, figuring that den of back alley deals might give him a chance to refit himself, get a new identity, a new face. It’s desperate. And, let’s face it, the place is corrupt, and corruption is the code word for space to move.
But he is a criminal. The story makes plain that it wasn’t the only crime in his life. And the story makes it clear that this is a corrupt world. We have become enhanced, but something in us has gone the other way.
Increasingly, the story is about distant agents coming for him, then less distant agents, and ever less distant agents close in on him. And they come too fast. His plans are made a millstone around his neck. The agents are a fence closing in, electrified in an electric world of microchips and implanted machinery.
Desperate, he tries a new plan, a new escape, a new chance, he gets ready, and just as he’s ready….
It’s a film worth watching. And it’s not like it takes long to see it in full.
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