Mikko Niskanen – Käpy selän alla AKA Under Your Skin (1966)

Synopsis:
Mikko Niskanen’s famous new wave film about the ’60s urban intellectuals who get faced in the Finnish countryside with loads of beer.

Review:
From the opening shot, Skin, Skin is concerned with the senses: the camera, rotating 360 degrees, captures a lake with the objective to immerse the viewer in the diegesis and to photograph the way the light plays on the choppy waves. As the film progresses, the sensual focus becomes more tactile, as the title suggests. The four protagonists’ bodies are depicted as sexual but holy; when united, the characters seem to care about nothing other than the feeling of each other’s touch. Obligation and ownership are implied, and when these rules are broken, it is tragic. Each actor’s performance contains multitudes: the medical school class clown who seems patient and tender with the girl he likes, the virgin concerned at once with retaining her innocence and exploring her budding adulthood, the Casanova whose bonds of friendship are at odds with his horndog nature, and the girl who struggles to reconcile her lover’s freedom with her desire for possession of him. The film shows situations that flow into each other and that allow each of these characters to interact with each other, bringing their anxieties to the forefront of the film’s attention. Parallel situations highlight fear in some cases and stress relief in others, inviting the viewer to recognize how personality differences affect how the scenes play out uniquely.
— Kapten Grogg (Letterboxd)