The Man Who Sold His Skin is a 2019 International Coproduction (Tunisia was involved enough to submit this film to the Oscars and get a nomination for International Feature) directed by Kaouther Ben Hania.
The story is set in 2011. Sam lives in Raqqa, Syria. He has a dazzlingly beautiful girlfriend, Abeer, but Abeer's family prefers that she marry Ziad, who has a steady job with the Syrian Foreign Ministry. Sam makes an incautious comment on a train and, because this is Assad's Syria, is immediately arrested by the secret police. A sympathetic policeman lets him escape, and another friend helps him get over the border into Lebanon, but he is still a refugee. Worse, in his absence, Abeer has married Ziad.
Enter Jeffrey Godefroy, an unconventional Belgian artist who has a chance meeting with Sam. Godefroy decides to use Sam as both a work of art and a political project, by tattooing a photo-realistic Schengen visa
onto Sam's back. Sam gets a Schengen visa on his passport as well as his skin, and thus gets passage to Europe, working for Jeffrey. But Sam soon finds that being a living piece of art, required to sit on display in a gallery, is a different kind of oppression.
Monica Bellucci plays Soraya, Jeffrey's agent.
Tropes:
- Body Paint: An extreme version, as Sam gets a tattoo of a Schengen visa that covers up most of his back.
- Brandishment Bluff: When Sam is literally sold at auction, he snaps. He turns to face the bidders, holds up an earphone plug as if it were a bomb detonator, and starts screaming. All it is, is an earphone plug, but all the rich people in attendance run screaming in terror.
- Chekhov's Skill: When Sam first calls her after Ameer has moved to Belgium, she says that she's working as a French translator for Syrian refugees. This is how they are reunited near the end of the movie, when he is arrested and his lawyer brings Ameer in as a translator.
- Dramatic Drop: Abeer dramatically drops her bag of groceries when Sam surprises her with a visit to her apartment building, the first time they've met since his flight.
- Downer Beginning: Sam is introduced in a scene where Assad's State Sec shows up in the middle of the night, bangs on his door, and arrests him.
- Faking the Dead: Sam is kidnapped and murdered by ISIS. ISIS then slices the skin off his back and tries to sell it, but the skin is recovered and returned to Jeffrey. Except it turns out to all be a hoax. The video was faked. Jeffrey got a DNA sample from Sam and used it to make some lab-grown skin which he tattooed a second time, and which was matched to Sam by a DNA test. Sam, whom most of the world now believes to be dead, is instead living quietly back in Raqqa with Ameer.
- Gilligan Cut: Sam has been tossed out of the art gallery for entering uninvited and cadging food. Jeffrey has a "Eureka!" Moment, chases Sam down, and offers him a drink. Sam refuses, saying "You don't need to offer me anything, ok?" Cut to the two of them drinking in a bar.
- Gross-Up Close-Up: Sam gets a couple pretty bad pimples on his back, which is a problem because his back is a valuable work of art on public display. Jeffrey takes him to a dermatologist and there is a gross close-up of a pimple being popped, with pus oozing out.
- Hiding Behind the Language Barrier: Sam's Francophone lawyer gives him some papers and asks Ameer to translate them for him. Ameer proceeds to tell Sam, in Arabic, that she has moved out of Zaid's house and is getting a divorce, and she wants the two of them to get back together.
- Inspired by…: There is a title card at the end saying that the story was "Freely inspired by" the story of Wim Delvoye, a Real Life artist who actually did tattoo a guy's back for an art piece.
- Love Triangle: Between Sam, Abeer, and Abeer's husband Zaid, whom she married to get out of Syria after Sam disappeared.
- Punk in the Trunk: A variation. When Sam's lady friend is stopped by Syrian border guards, they actually do check her trunk. It turns out that Sam is literally sewn inside the passenger seat of the car, which is mostly hollow.
- Real-Person Cameo: Wim Delvoye, the artist who in Real Life tattooed a picture on a guy's back and thus inspired this movie, appears briefly as an insurance agent who discusses insuring Sam.
- Repeat Cut: When Sam screams at the audience of one-percenters who have been bidding on him at an auction. That combined with a Brandishment Bluff makes them all flee in terror.
- Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: Sam's situation starts to feel a lot more like slavery when a Swiss douchebag buys him, and then brags about how he bought Sam while Sam is on display. When Sam is later sold at auction, he snaps.
- Split-Screen Phone Call: For the scene where Abeer and Sam break it off, because she won't break it off with her husband. The scene actually has Abeer's half of the phone call shift from left to right as she walks from one room to another.
- State Sec: Sam, giddy on a train car after Abeer has agreed to marry him, says "It's a revolution! We want freedom!" He's really talking about getting married despite her parents not liking him, but this indiscreet remark gets him arrested and jailed.
- Stepping Out for a Quick Cup of Coffee: Sam is getting grilled by a State Sec officer after his arrest, when the officer mentions completely out of nowhere that he and Sam are distant cousins. The officer isn't very discreet, simply saying "Get Out!" as he gets up and walks out the door. Sam then escapes through the conveniently open window.
- Sudden Downer Ending: Played straight then averted. Five minutes before the credits, Sam's happy return to Syria with Ameer is followed by a Smash to Black and then Soraya watching a video about how Sam was murdered by ISIS (the entire art project made a lot of Syrians very angry). But it turns out Sam was Faking the Dead.
- Time Skip:
- "One year later" finds Sam in Beirut, working a menial job and pretty unhappy. It's there that he meets Soraya and Jeffrey.
- "Nine months later" finds Sam in a more degrading situation, after he has been sold to a private art collector.
