On My Skin

Stefano Cucchi (Alessandro Borghi) is sitting in his car having a smoke with his friend when they are approached by some late night beat cops. They find some cocaine hidden in his sock so take him to the station where he is promptly "interrogated" before being sent to jail by a somewhat uncurious magistrate. Once incarcerated, though, it becomes clear that he is now not a well man and that despite the best efforts of his family outside to see him and of himself to contact his lawyers, things start to take a distinctly fatalistic turn. The fact that we start where we finish removes the jeopardy from this reenactment of true events, but that doesn't matter so much as we watch Borghi turn in quite an impressive performance. Politically, it's a powerful critique of the indifference of the State to people it already considers as write-offs, and it's also quite a fairly savage indictment of the abuses of power carried out by officials who are little better - if at all - than those they are supposed to be protecting us from. By avoiding any temptation to turn this into a courtroom drama, this more effectively presents us with a graduating video-diary style of production illustrating the decline of a man who refuses to abandon his dignity, and though it is a fairly grim film to watch it is well worth a look as an observation of consequence.