UNDER THE SKIN
UK, 2013, 107 minutes, Colour.
Scarlett Johansson.
Directed by Jonathan Glazer.
This is a film which is very interesting to think about and talk about after seeing it, perhaps more so than while watching it. It is an artfully made film, certainly designed for an outhouse audience rather than a popular audience who might be quickly bewildered by its style and themes.
The skin is that of Scarlett Johansson, once the child actor in films like The Horse Whisperer, moving to significant adult roles in Lost in Translation, more lately having a mixed career in The I am Man and The avengers films.
In 2013, she was a significant presence in Her, a character not seen on screen but only heard, the voice for a computerised robot, designed as a companion for a man who invested in this kind of technology. This time she is, initially, a strange woman who seems to assume the identity of another woman and then is seen driving a van through the streets of Glasgow. She keeps asking people the way, ordinary men in the street, some of whom respond, getting to get into the van, with lustful intentions which are then seen to be extraordinarily frustrated, becoming surreal as they work in as they walk into a viscous pool and are destroyed. No explanations given. The audience is left to wonder about the relationships between men and women, about seduction, about willingness to be seduced, about lost and sexuality, about the destructive woman.
While this seems eerie and sometimes unreal, there are many scenes of life in Glasgow, contemporary, shops and supermarkets, and discussion about the 2014 referendum for Scottish independence.
There is an interlude at a beach, where Scarlett Johansson sees a couple in difficulties in the water, and attempted rescue and failure, and the discussion with a man from the Czech Republic – man who seems ordinary and sincere, but doomed in his encounter. Another interlude involves her asking directions from a man with a disfigured head and face, reminiscent of the elephant man. She interrogates him about his life, loneliness, sexual desires, sympathetically seducing him, but with different results.
We are still wondering who this woman is. there is also a mysterious rider on a motorbike who seems to be controlling her. the drama moves on a little when she goes on a bus into the Scottish countryside, which are sympathetic man who takes her in, takes her shopping, has a more restrained sexual encounter with her. In the woods, she encounters a range who seem sympathetic at first but their encounter has dire consequences.
When it is revealed what is under the skin, it is an alien woman, visually renders reminiscent of mystique in the X-men series.
At the film is based on a novel by which, according to readers, has the elements of the film takes many of them in a different direction, social commentary about life and work in Scotland. Under the Skin, however, just focuses on the woman, her predatory and destructive behaviour, and leaves audiences to ponder all of this, male and female stereotypes and transcending them, and what is, ultimately, alien behaviour.
1. Critics’ admiration? Accessibility to audiences?
2. The work of the director, in film, visual arts, photography and composition?
3. Science fiction, the basis in a novel, adaptation?
4. The visual style, Scotland, the city of Glasgow, the ordinary streets, ordinary citizens, markets, shops, bars? The countryside?
5. The opening, the focus on the dot of light, the images of the eye? Darkness and light? Silhouettes, the alien taking the clothes from the human? The close-ups? Action sequences? The contrast with the normal, and contemporary references, TV programs, Scottish independence? And the eerie? The image of water, the lake, the sea, rain? The liquid lake for the human disappearances? the underwater sequences? The effects for the photography?
6. The credits, the alien coming to earth, taking the human form, the dead woman, the human clothes? The identity under the clothes, under the skin? The mystery of the cyclist? The orders for the alien to act? The van and her driving it? Her behaviour, sleeping or not, eating or not, the revulsion at the cake in the diner? Her asking the directions, seductive manner? British accent? The men’s response, the sexual response, their behaviour? Taking them, their going into the liquid, sucked dry of humanity? The alien and her sense of mission? The different men, the man with the disfigured head, the ranger and the attempted rape? Her exhaustion, the gasoline, the fire, destruction?
7. Scarlett Johansson in this role, her appearance, behaviour, driving the van, seemingly ordinary, asking the way, ordinary conversation, watching the people of Glasgow going about their ordinary life? Picking the men, asking the way, the responses, inviting them in? The two men whom she destroyed? The man with the disfigured head? Enticing him, asking about his sexual responses, his friends? Seen naked, sexual encounter? Not destroying him? Going to the beach, meeting the man from the Czech Republic, the discussions? The couple on the beach and the baby? The person in difficulty, going to the rescue? Dragging the corpse from the water? Leaving the baby crying? In the countryside, travelling on the bus, people helping her, going to the supermarket, a place to stay? The kindly man? His sexual encounter? In the countryside, the views, the ranger, the discussions with him? The attempted rape, his leading, his destroying the alien?
8. The portrait of the men, ordinary citizens, naked, last, deaths, destroyed?
9. The long sequences, silence, time for the audience to contemplate? The juxtaposition of the ordinary with the eerie? The overall effect of the film?
10. Themes, aliens, male and female, sexuality, lust, enticement and seduction, destruction?
