Union
Under the Skin (2013), directed by Jonathan Glazer, is an eerie and unnerving science fiction film starring Scarlett Johansson as an alien in contemporary Scotland, cruising about in a white van and picking up men. Her (its?) appearance as Johansson (hair dyed black) is really a membrane covering the alien. Behaving like a serial killer, "she" approaches the men in her van, offers them rides after some flirty small talk, then takes those who get into her vehicle to a crummy derelict of a house in Edinburgh. She has bizarre sex with them resulting in their absorption into herself--a process never explained and also depicted in an abstract manner.
Glazer shows her method of annihilating her victims in a non-literal way, the seduction and absorption a set of visual ideas on a special stage with black liquid. It could be that the broken down house conceals a room made with alien technology. There's one shot of what appears to be a round ship with spinning lights hovering in the clouds. She apparently came to Earth to observe, but she got into feeding on people, whether out of necessity or curiosity, I'm not sure.
After she's made a few men disappear she begins to change, holding back on two men she meets, not wanting, evidently, to destroy them. She's becoming affected by her previous victims in a psychic way, perhaps. She wants to experience more of what being human is. She tries eating but can't keep it in her mouth without gagging. She finds she doesn't have normal female sex organs--the facsimile goes just so far.
Throughout, she's accompanied by men on motorcycles who apparently are also of her species. They clean up after her people-destroying activities. There's the implication that she's misbehaving, from the standpoint of her own species. Apparently, she became curious about human society, wanting to interact, but her abilities in this area are severely limited. She goes about in a near trance state much of the time, becoming increasingly spooky to others. Her fate is intimately tied to her lack of being able to relate on a human level; yet, near the end, she seems most human as a victim.
The film was shot in the cold months of Scotland. Fog, rain, gray skies permeate the atmosphere. Beautiful and stark cinematography of the countryside give a glimpse of Britain that's the opposite of a cozy murder mystery. The film exists in long unfolding pieces; Johansson observing, her demeanor cold and weird within fractions of a second after speaking warmly with someone who refuses a ride.
There's an inversion of the sexual predator idea in that the victimizer is, or appears to be, a woman, cruising for flesh in a white van. Had the film made the alien character a man in appearance, it would have still been disturbing, but would've felt familiar; a male serial killer wreaking havoc on women.
Scarlett Johansson is good in this movie as she conveys the mystery of a being from another world, another dimension perhaps, moving about in urban and rural environments familiar to us, but strange and forbidding when contemplated from the perspective of an alien visitor.
The most striking quality of the movie is its refusal to explain--there's no narration, very little dialogue. It's a film of inferences, with no satisfying answer as to why this extraterrestrial is here or even if she's supposed to be here. Is she a scout? A traveler? An exile? We don't know. We do know that, like humans, she wants to have sex and she can't be blamed for how she does it; it's what she knows, it's how she's built.
Let's agree, for the sake of argument, that Earth has been visited by aliens, and is perhaps visited regularly. Could it be that some of these visitations have nothing to do with politics, or grand scale power manipulations, or harvesting our natural resources, or breeding human/alien hybrids, or research for a future invasion? Could it be that some of these visits are just individuals going for a ride and setting down here for a while? If that's the case, maybe they would blend into society and no human would ever realize the alien presence, especially if such aliens did basic human activities, including kidnapping and murdering people.
Not a pleasant thought, but as I pointed out at the beginning of this essay, Under the Skin is an unnerving film.
Vic Neptune
Under the Skin (2013), directed by Jonathan Glazer, is an eerie and unnerving science fiction film starring Scarlett Johansson as an alien in contemporary Scotland, cruising about in a white van and picking up men. Her (its?) appearance as Johansson (hair dyed black) is really a membrane covering the alien. Behaving like a serial killer, "she" approaches the men in her van, offers them rides after some flirty small talk, then takes those who get into her vehicle to a crummy derelict of a house in Edinburgh. She has bizarre sex with them resulting in their absorption into herself--a process never explained and also depicted in an abstract manner.
Glazer shows her method of annihilating her victims in a non-literal way, the seduction and absorption a set of visual ideas on a special stage with black liquid. It could be that the broken down house conceals a room made with alien technology. There's one shot of what appears to be a round ship with spinning lights hovering in the clouds. She apparently came to Earth to observe, but she got into feeding on people, whether out of necessity or curiosity, I'm not sure.
After she's made a few men disappear she begins to change, holding back on two men she meets, not wanting, evidently, to destroy them. She's becoming affected by her previous victims in a psychic way, perhaps. She wants to experience more of what being human is. She tries eating but can't keep it in her mouth without gagging. She finds she doesn't have normal female sex organs--the facsimile goes just so far.
Throughout, she's accompanied by men on motorcycles who apparently are also of her species. They clean up after her people-destroying activities. There's the implication that she's misbehaving, from the standpoint of her own species. Apparently, she became curious about human society, wanting to interact, but her abilities in this area are severely limited. She goes about in a near trance state much of the time, becoming increasingly spooky to others. Her fate is intimately tied to her lack of being able to relate on a human level; yet, near the end, she seems most human as a victim.
The film was shot in the cold months of Scotland. Fog, rain, gray skies permeate the atmosphere. Beautiful and stark cinematography of the countryside give a glimpse of Britain that's the opposite of a cozy murder mystery. The film exists in long unfolding pieces; Johansson observing, her demeanor cold and weird within fractions of a second after speaking warmly with someone who refuses a ride.
There's an inversion of the sexual predator idea in that the victimizer is, or appears to be, a woman, cruising for flesh in a white van. Had the film made the alien character a man in appearance, it would have still been disturbing, but would've felt familiar; a male serial killer wreaking havoc on women.
Scarlett Johansson is good in this movie as she conveys the mystery of a being from another world, another dimension perhaps, moving about in urban and rural environments familiar to us, but strange and forbidding when contemplated from the perspective of an alien visitor.
The most striking quality of the movie is its refusal to explain--there's no narration, very little dialogue. It's a film of inferences, with no satisfying answer as to why this extraterrestrial is here or even if she's supposed to be here. Is she a scout? A traveler? An exile? We don't know. We do know that, like humans, she wants to have sex and she can't be blamed for how she does it; it's what she knows, it's how she's built.
Let's agree, for the sake of argument, that Earth has been visited by aliens, and is perhaps visited regularly. Could it be that some of these visitations have nothing to do with politics, or grand scale power manipulations, or harvesting our natural resources, or breeding human/alien hybrids, or research for a future invasion? Could it be that some of these visits are just individuals going for a ride and setting down here for a while? If that's the case, maybe they would blend into society and no human would ever realize the alien presence, especially if such aliens did basic human activities, including kidnapping and murdering people.
Not a pleasant thought, but as I pointed out at the beginning of this essay, Under the Skin is an unnerving film.
Vic Neptune
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