Mysterious Skin

Herald rating: * * * *

It's been more than a decade since Araki's particular brand of breakneck romantic nihilism was let loose on festival audiences here: The Living End, a wild-eyed and defiantly gay 1992 road movie about two HIV-positive lovers, captured with bracing honesty the sense of abandon that must be seen as a perfectly valid response to a sentence of death.

This film, Araki's first general release here, is hardly less transgressive; it explores the idea that the relationship between paedophiles and their victims might be no less deserving than any other of being called love. Although it is at times eye-wateringly frank - the censor's rating below deserves careful reading - it is a tender, even lyrical work with a sure feel for the emotional pulse of its characters.

Based on a 1995 novel by Scott Heim, it concerns two boys in 80s small-town Kansas whose lives are linked by an act of abuse to which they have responded in radically different ways. Brian (Corbet) becomes a male prostitute, first in his hometown and later on the mean streets of New York, while Neil (Gordon-Levitt), who blacked out at the time of trauma, is a geeky teenager, obsessed with UFOs and struggling to work out what happened.

The boys' stories are narrated in parallel - though crucially they will intersect - and make for a film of vibrantly authentic emotional tone. It's driven by brilliant performances from the two young leads (their boyhood stand-ins were, incidentally, not present when scenes they appear to be part of were shot), a dreamy visual composition and a wonderfully evocative score.

Araki, who in many compositions pointedly implicates the viewer, insists he has not made a film "about" paedophilia but about responses to it. While the fever about child abuse panic still runs hot, it's a brave move. He won't get much thanks for it, but he deserves acknowledgement.

CAST: Brady Corbet, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bill Sage
DIRECTOR: Gregg Araki
RUNNING TIME: 99 minutes
RATING: R18, sexual abuse themes, sexual violence, drug use.
SCREENING: Rialto from Thursday