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Review: Under The Skin

★★★☆☆
Three Stars

‘Under the Skin’ is a difficult film to review. It goes against so many cinematic norms that you begin to wonder whether it’s really appropriate to judge the film by any of the normal standards. Generally you tend to judge art films by how well they capture or evoke some aspect of what (in very high flown terms) it means to be human. Well, ‘Under the Skin’ seems to invert that whole notion; it is a film about what it means not to be human. On every level the film seems calculated to deny any kind of humanising impulse, to make the viewing experience truly ‘alien’.

The film begins with several minutes of mysterious concentric circles moving ominously to a strange backing track, you guess they are planets aligning or parts of a machine slotting into place; only to discover that you have in fact been watching the formation of an eye. It’s a neat synecdoche for what the film does as a whole, make deeply strange the seemingly ordinary and human. Throughout the rest of the film we are forced to some extent to see our world through the eyes of Scarlet Johansson’s alien.

The film was shot on the streets of Glasgow with specially made, hidden cameras; many of the shots look like something out of a BBC News segment and many of her interactions are with ordinary Glaswegians, unaware at the time that they are being filmed. Yet, the way it is all cut together and structured gives a very strange perspective to this ‘hyper-realist’ footage. There is nothing in the way of a plot for the viewer to grab onto, no sense that her actions are leading up to anything. We just watch her drive aimlessly around Glasgow in her white van, flirting with random men and occasionally managing to bring them back to her lair and convert them into food.

She meets so many men, and each disappears from the screen within such a short period of time, that we are denied real insight and the chance of empathy. This has a dehumanising effect, we begin to see these ordinary people in the same detached manner as the alien. Their deaths don’t seem especially tragic because the film has strenuously avoided extending our sympathies. The alien is herself an enigma, with Johansson conveying a real sense of something unfathomable hiding just under the skin. We just watch on, intrigued but coldly distanced, unable to empathise with what is going on in front of us; a case of ‘Verfremdungseffekt/Alienation’ if ever there was one. Towards the end the film moves into more empathetic terrain with scenes involving Johansson contemplating her naked body in the mirror or choosing not to kill a deformed man she seems to show kindness to. Still, any insight remains oblique in the extreme, and it is clear by the end that we have gained as little understanding of this alien as she has of humanity.

Presumably you’re reading this review to find out whether this is a film you’re going to enjoy watching. To be honest, I’m not sure ‘enjoy’ is the right word to describe the experience of watching this film. It was definitely very interesting, but it is also such a deliberately alienating experience that emotionally it feels rather muted. Certainly anyone just looking for the “tits n’ terror” that the setup seems to promise will be pretty disappointed, the seduction scenes are purposefully mechanical and unerotic while throughout there is very little in the way of suspense.

Still, it is a hugely innovative work made in a time of deep rooted conservatism and stasis in the film industry. It represents a fully formed and ambitious artistic statement, and I think ultimately deserves your support. There is a hauntingly austere beauty to it, the likes of which I’ve never seen before. Many of its images will stay with you for days.

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