The Cinematheque

“Deceptively simple … Quietly illuminating … The film furthers Côté’s unique talent for locating beauty and humanity in the most unlikely places.”

Jordan Cronk, Sight and Sound

The adventurous Canadian auteur and critics’ favourite Denis Côté (Curling, Bestiaire, Vic + Flow Saw a Bear) turns his distinctive eye to the hard-muscled world of competitive male bodybuilding in the tender, witty, and beautifully observant A Skin So Soft. Côté’s understated film captures with intimacy and formal precision the ordinary, everyday lives, dietary routines, and workout regimens of six Québécois strongmen. The director, frequently drawn to loners, eccentrics, and outsiders, is known for often blurring the boundaries between fiction and documentary in his cinema. This beguiling study of (hyper-)masculinity, obsessive self-sculpting, and the representation of the human form is decidedly a documentary, with only a modest move towards Côté-style hybridity nearer its conclusion. A Skin So Soft is another superb work from a consistently surprising filmmaker. Côté was the subject of a Cinematheque retrospective in 2013.