User Reviews

Herbert, the prosperous entrepreneur living amongst post-card Swiss mountains. Karlmann, son of one of Northern Germany's richest families. And Albert, the old-style sailor. Three lifelong friends who devoted their lives to a common passion when this was seriously taboo: tattooing. At first, the three give the impression of friendly, polite and well-to-do gentlemen around 90. And that´s exactly what they are. But once they take off their shirts, their blue tattooed skin tells dramatic stories of a life firmly on the other side of convention. Emotional stories of love and love lost, of friendship and betrayal, of standing up for what you believe in against all odds. BLUE SKIN is the loveable, sometimes tragic, sometimes very funny account of how the three once met, why they find it hard to get on nowadays and whether there's any hope of making up. And through their biographies, we catch a glimpse of more than one century of one the world's most beautiful addictions: tattooing.

I don't have a particular interest in the subject of tattooing, but this German-Swiss feature-length documentary about three of the earliest pioneers of this profession in Europe is a fascinating look at the lives of three men, Albert Cornelisse (Rotterdam, 1913), Herbert Hofmann (Freienwalde, 1919) and Karlmann Richter (Kiel, 1913) and their shared passion for the art of tattooing. For a long period, tattoos remained largely within the exclusive domain of sailors, soldiers abroad or criminal circles (for instance the Japanese Yakuza or gang members in the U.S.). Although from the '70s onwards people from other circles started sporting tattoos, they were rarely socially accepted, especially in the workplace. In the last decade however, most taboos surrounding the practice seems to have disappeared and the popularity of tattoos in Western countries exploded. A poll conducted online in the U.S. in 2003 found that 16 % of all adults had at least one tattoo. In the age group 25-29 years old, this was 36 % and is still rising. Considering the ever increasing popularity of the subject, it's a mystery to me why this documentary is still relatively unknown.

This film doesn't really cover the profession itself. Above all, it's a portrait of three men, whose first passion is tattooing. On first appearance, they might look like ordinary elderly men, but beneath their clothes, they are covered in tattoos from head to toe. Herbert Hofmann's tattoo shop in Hamburg St. Pauli, "Germany's first professional tattoo shop", is the place where the lives of these men crossed. They all helped Herbert professionally for substantial periods in their lives, but when he decided to pass over the shop to his younger cousin in 1981 the others felt betrayed and their friendship came to an end. Until the making of this film, when the three men saw each other for the first time in years. I'm not sure if they became on very close terms again, but their encounter after all these years was a very moving sight indeed. Of course, the story behind all this is much more complex. One of them, Karlmann, even secretly left his wife and family in Southern Germany to work alongside Herbert Hofmann in his tattoo shop in Hamburg as late as 1970, because he couldn't live without his greatest passion. He lives with his son now, three of his other children haven't spoken to him since.

In a truly sincere and heart-moving way this film shows the fascinating life stories of these three men who gave up everything for their passion. Try to catch this if you can, it's a very rewarding experience.

Camera Obscura --- 9/10