Skin Deep

Skin Deep was the first major investment by the newly established NZ Film Commission. As a work of art it was New Zealand’s long-awaited break-through film.

Skin Deep, New Zealand, 1978

Director: Geoff Steven
Production co: Phase Three Films
Producer: John Maynard
Screenplay: Piers Davies, Roger Horrocks, Geoff Steven
From an original idea by: Geoff Steven
Dialogue: Robert J Williams
Director of photography: Leon Narbey
Camera operator: Paul Leach
Editor: Simon Sedgely
Art director: Ron Highfield
Sound: Graham Morris, Don Reynolds, Brian Shennan

With: Deryn Cooper (Sandra Ray), Jim MacFarlane (Boxing Manager), Ken Blackburn (Bob Warner), Alan Jervis (Vic Shaw), Grant Tilly (Phil Barrett)

35mm, 100 minutes, R16

A professional masseuse from the city comes to work in a small-town gym. What puffy civic leaders and their anxious wives expect of her has little to do with the civility she expects of them. Out of simmering misapprehensions comes an appealing comedy.

Skin Deep was the first major investment by the newly established NZ Film Commission. Made on a budget of only $180,000 the Commission committed $70,000, $10,00 came from Amalgamated Theatres cinema chain and the rest was made up through private investment. The film, involving a crew of about 22 people, was made on location in Raetihi and its New Zealand premiere was held there in February 1979 (the film had already screened in Europe and its American premiere was held at the Chicago Film Festival).

“Though world boxoffice cannot be predicted, Skin Deep looks a lively commercial entry for any market. Certainly, as a work of art it is New Zealand’s long-awaited break-through film. It is a soberly-paced absorbing tale of a small country town which is making its bid, via a publicity campaign, to attract tourists and industry. When a masseuse is imported from the nearest big city and Vic’s Gym becomes a massage parlor and sauna the inevitable happens. Many local males are anxious to try the parlor-style sex that previously they had only read about, and the respectable matrons pressure the police to shutter the den of vice. An excellent script and three-dimensional characters flesh out this skeleton. Central to the theme and payoff is Sandra Ray, the masseuse who, though she still emits plenty of erotic voltage, has had enough of the sex side of the business. She takes the job in the small town because she thought that there men would only be interested in straight massage. Helped by a script that drops the right sympathetic hints about the lady’s private life, tactfully getting the audience on her side. Cooper turns in a near-flawless performance as a disillusioned woman who learns that even hicks expect more than a health-giving rubdown… Skin Deep was brought in on a tiny budget (a reported NZ$180,000) but no cost-cutting is visible in any department, least of all in the highly professional production detail. Almost half the coin was put up by the new Film Commission, its first investment. No better launch for a fledgling film industry can be imagined.” — Variety, 4 October 1978

“We would all like to see New Zealand develop her very own feature film industry – even though, strictly speaking, that may not be a practical proposition. But who thinks about what sort of films we would make if we had such an industry regularly producing new movies for us? What exactly are New Zealand films going to be like? On the strength of what’s been done lately, we can expect plenty of anxiety and introversion, verging on claustrophobia; landscape, nature and the outdoors, even if only as a casual background to more closely-regarded events; and perhaps a slightly stultifying, inherent seriousness. But now Skin Deep has come along and opened up some unexpected possibilities for New Zealand film. Subtlety, for instance: here, at last, is a genuinely subtle local feature, which scores its points by parable and a sly, creeping wit that builds gradually towards the overtly outrageous rather than leaping in boots and all. Without being at all pompous about it, Skin Deep manages to be intelligent and perceptive. There is more richness of observation and astute social comment here than we have seen in our own films so far… Quite apart from thematic considerations, the syntax of the film is highly proficient. Director Geoff Steve seems able to create an effortless fluidity of narrative that seems noticeable in most New Zealand films more by its absence than anything else. Framing of shots, cutting and general photographic quality is excellent, and the script, by Steven, Piers Davies and Roger Horrocks, provides the actors, who without exception are perfectly cast, with plenty of good bits of business to play with. Perhaps the best part, though (and unfortunately also one of the risks the film is taking, given the generally assumed nature of local audiences), is that the satire is very discreet indeed. It seems to take some viewers quite a while to detect that they are watching a comedy, that the serious observations the film makes about New Zealand life aren’t meant to obscure the humour of the situations presented. The surface appearance of the film, to somebody failing to perceive the humour, is not inconsistent with that of an ordinary, po-faced New Zealand film, and some of us may actually be too close to the life styles shown to realize that these patterns of behaviour are often risibly paradoxical. This may even be a film which requires a certain cultural distance for fullest appreciation; in which case, Skin Deep could very well prove to be our most successful film so far in overseas markets.” — Stephen Ballantyne, Listener, 24 February 1979

“Skin Deep, a first feature by New Zealand director Geoff Steven, is a nice, socially aware comedy of the sort that Hollywood might have made 30 or 40 years ago, when movies didn’t have to be blockbusters and when movie makers were allowed to express some interest in the quality of the life around them… Skin Deep recalls two recent films by Michael Ritchie (Smile) and Jonathan Demme (Handle with Care), though in many ways its view of small-town life is much more bleak, its attitude toward hypocrisy more angry and its disgust with economic boosterism less satiric. I’m not sure that it is thus more honest, only that it is more inclined to worry. I also suspect that because Mr Steven knows that small towns like Carlton are very easy to make fun of, he has made his film with care and given it characters he would like to respect, despite their short-sighted attempts to harness progress. He’s also assembled a cast of excellent actors, particularly Ken Blackburn as the head of the local booster club and Grant Tilly as a hen-pecked husband for whom the easy-going Sandra Gray represents his wickedest dreams come true. Best of all is Miss Cooper, who has the look and manner of a woman who has been through everything once, at a very early age, and is not about to suffer twice. It’s a secure, intelligent performance, strong without a bit of toughness. Like the New Zealand countryside in which the film is set, the character is both beautiful and utterly lonely.” — Vincent Canby, New York Times, 20 April 1979

Screenings: Skin Deep screened on 25 January 2006