Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2014)

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The Narrator Returns
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Re: Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2014)

#76 Post by The Narrator Returns » Sun Apr 20, 2014 3:30 pm

I finally saw this (amazingly, it played 15 minutes from my house), and I adored it.
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I was especially tickled that the final scene was almost verbatim from Glazer's video for "Karma Police".

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Re: Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2014)

#77 Post by Clodius » Mon Apr 21, 2014 2:42 am

warren oates wrote:Not really. If you'd read what I wrote more carefully, you'd see that I explicitly said I didn't think more exposition would help, especially not what I gathered the novel offered. What would help, if the second half of the film wants to work at all, is some minimalist modicum of set-up and pay-off with regard to just what it is the protagonist is trying to do and, even more crucially, just how it is she views herself -- so that, when her attitude seems to change, we can track that and understand how and why it matters to her.
I read what you wrote bud. Saying that you don't want more exposition, but then wanting the film to elaborate more deeply on the world within is asking for...exposition.
what it is the protagonist is trying to do and, even more crucially, just how it is she views herself
This is exposition. What makes the film so amazing is how understandable it is with practically no exposition or explanation.
But, in a film that asserts for its entire first hour that they are utterly and unknowably alien -- if, indeed, we take that claim seriously -- we can't possibly "consider" our way into understanding them at all without taking wild guesses. That's where the film collapses under its own weight. Either she's inscrutably alien (as the first half of the film asserts) or she's suddenly magically, facilely anthropomorphic (as the second half of the film seems to need her to be).
Is she ever really utterly unknowable, even in the first part of the movie? The movie never made this claim. During the first part of the movie, she is clearly acting with a purpose (ensnaring men), under the pretense of what we would either call a mission or a job, complete with supervisor. How is that inscrutable? Were you watching the first part of the film?
This is almost certainly the assumption the film wants you to make. Yet in making it, the film erases any credibility it has by retroactively embracing a set of assumptions about her relative "humanity" that nullifies its prior construction of her alien otherness.
Why can't an alien otherness try to embrace humanity once exposed to it? Again though, you're way over emphasizing the "otherness" in the film. While we don;t get a peak at her ultimate motivations (i.e. why is she here, etc) it's not as if she's operating at a logical frequency unattuned to human consciousness. She isn't Cthulu.
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Try this thought experiment: Picture the solid jet black form underneath her SarJo disguise -- perhaps not her true form, but truer to her alien nature than her human costume -- and see if you can make any of those same assertions again with a straight face. The director is literally telling you his character is a blank. And yet in the very next breath, once she frees elephant man, he's trying to manipulate you into feeling for her as if she were remotely human or even like any Earthly lifeform we could understand, because... Because if you don't then there's either nothing to watch for the next 45 minutes, or what you're watching is in serious danger of meaning absolutely nothing.
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Funny that we barely even see that solid black form until the end of the movie, when she has tried to connect with humanity on a deeper level. If the film wanted to embrace the alien otherness as much as you claim, wouldn't we have a lot more of that rather than a single flash and the end scene? She may not be a lifeform whose ultimate purpose for existence we understand, but again, she operates a a frequency understandable by humans from the beginning of the movie till the end.
You really can't even pretend to have a theory of the protagonist's mind unless you blindly and unquestioningly accept the silly fudging the film is playing with its own rules.
And you can't enjoy a good movie until you get over your own pretentiousness.

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Re: Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2014)

#78 Post by Michael Kerpan » Mon Apr 21, 2014 11:40 am

Dear Mr. Clodius --

I would respectfully suggest that you dial back the snottiness of your postings. In particular, I would recommend not addressing fellow forum members as "bud".

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Re: Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2014)

#79 Post by mfunk9786 » Mon Apr 21, 2014 12:07 pm

Hey pal, don't tell the man how to post. You can't enjoy a good response until you get over your own pretentiousness, dude.

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Re: Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2014)

#80 Post by mfunk9786 » Thu May 01, 2014 1:43 am

Under the Skin, for my money, was one of the most bafflingly disappointing films of the year so far. While I still find Black Hat's review absurd in its disrespectfulness and lack of substantive commentary on what made the film so poor in favor of trashing those who like it, I can't say I disagree too much with the assessment of the quality on display here. Aside from a small handful of interesting visual ideas, much of Under the Skin looks just a cut above Cash Cab b-roll, and it isn't exactly rocket science to find the beauty in a few outdoor shots of gorgeous natural splendor. When the science fiction elements of the plot are on display, there is no set design whatsoever, which leaves the film's central conceit feeling more unexplained and vague than it would have been had Glazer found a way to give it some sort of visual language to at least provide some context of what in the world was actually happening to these rubes. Once the film exits the revolving door of the first (& second, it seemed) act[s], it becomes even more of a chore to pin down. A character who appears to be a handler of some kind early on in the film aimlessly gets in and out of vehicles and zooms along desolate roads on his motorcycle (to no actual avail, as the film remains defiantly opaque all the way up to the closing credits) while Johansson's character seems to only act without letting the viewer in on any shred of her motivations for doing just about anything (aside from her understandable reaction to something that occurs late in the film).

Glazer's approach to this material is stingy, and that's being kind - this is the sort of film that provides a lot of questions and nothing approaching answers - but unlike great surrealism (or even good - this film has enough in common with this year's Enemy for me to unfavorably compare it) the questions being asked are just not interesting enough to let the viewer into the idea that they have any inquisitor's stake into why in the world all of this is going on, and more importantly, why we should care. Scarlett Johansson is absolutely gorgeous, as we all know, and at times it's very sensual to see her carefully and quixotically examine her naked body on screen, but it's difficult for any actor to be in every scene of material that provides them no wiggle room for actual perceptible motivation. I feel much the way I did after last year's All Is Lost (though more cheated here due to this film's lack of respect for its audience) - this is the sort of thing that should be compelling, watching someone who commands the screen with relative ease do something unique with that ability, so it's very disappointing when that very appealing prospect comes up far short of its potential. I'm reminded of Roger Ebert on The Master: "...but when I reach for it, my hand closes on air."

EDIT, day later: I will say, I can't stop thinking about the film, and it's certainly going to warrant an at-home re-watch (the whole movie, not just the Mr. Skin entry [-X) when it's available for such things. Considering my negative reaction to my first viewing I'm not expecting much, but it's stuck with me and it's one of those films I'd never dissuade anyone from seeing despite my disappointment.
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Re: Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2014)

#81 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed May 07, 2014 12:00 pm


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Re: Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2014)

#82 Post by swo17 » Wed May 07, 2014 12:06 pm


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Re: Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2014)

#83 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed May 07, 2014 12:08 pm

Ah, I didn't see an entry on Amazon. Terrific!

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Re: Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2014)

#84 Post by barryconvex » Sat Jul 05, 2014 9:34 pm

i really loved this movie and thought it had some of the most effective "killing music" since Psycho but this:
mfunk9786 wrote:...much of Under the Skin looks just a cut above Cash Cab b-roll...
...still made me laugh out loud...

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Re: Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2014)

#85 Post by TristanTre » Tue Jul 08, 2014 5:06 pm

I can't say that I'm surprised with a lot of the responses I'm seeing on this thread but I personally absolutely loved this film. Not only does it have a distinctly unique and mesmerizing visual and auditory style but the subtle humanity in its characterization and writing was astonishing to me. Films that touch on existential themes seem to be the ones that resonate with me the most and Under the Skin, as BlankProjector so perfectly put it, is "a grand statement on what it means to be a human being." ScarJo's acting was so subtly acute and spot on, I almost can't even put it into words. The character is presented as cold and mechanical and then the change you see spark in her literally seems to light a fire inside of her and you see her become a much more organic and emotional creature.
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In her final moments gazing upon the face of the skin she stole and finally taking pity on her actions cementing her "abduction" into humanity making the events of the movie come full circle. It's such a beautiful character arc to see progress and all the while being an observant eye on our own odd and curious behaviors as a human race.

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Re: Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2014)

#86 Post by colinr0380 » Sat Jul 12, 2014 7:31 pm

Spoilers:

I don't think I've witnessed such a culture shock moment in cinema since that scene in Unleashed/Danny The Dog in which Morgan Freeman and Jet Li wander around a Glaswegian Spar shop! (I'm going to go wild with my filmic free associating in a minute so I hope this first one prepares you!). Not that Scarlett Johansson isn't allowed and/or encouraged to prowl the streets of Glasgow at leisure if she wishes (and she's already encountered the local neds attacking her in her van, so she is prepared for that happening again!), but there is that strange way that a Hollywood interloper is clashing with the 'real world' (annoyingly if the film were set in Edinburgh I could have used the "Hollywood clashing with Holyrood" pun!) that aptly feels like two entirely separate worlds, and cultures, troublingly clashing together. Studying each other. Trying to figure each other out. Mutual communication or just a way of working out the best way to exploit the other party to fulfil their goal? Which almost always comes back to sex.

I really liked this film, especially in its beautiful layered imagery in which Johansson's face almost becomes part of the natural world, or gets surrounded by vibrant waves of human energy. It is an enigmatic film that puts quite a few other enigmatic films to shame in the sense that, in its vagueness, the film encompasses so many different subjects from the mundane to the comic to the cosmic that it seems to touch on all sorts of levels. Only Kiyoshi Kurosawa is similar, and this film could feel like some strange combinaton of the serial killing Cure, the forbidden and forbidding 'ghetto areas' of Pulse, the comedy of Doppleganger, and the abstracted enviromentalism of Charisma.

For example I love that this film is grounded in its contemporary Scottish setting. Johansson's use of a rather received pronounciation British accent, as well as amusingly getting around the issues of a thick Glaswegian accent by getting her to repeat her male companion's dialogue (thereby reinforcing the culture clash idea and I loved the idea that, while story-wise it ties into the mimicry idea, that a killer alien is the medium used by the filmmakers here in order to help the international audience understand the Scots accent!), itself implicitly raises a lot of questions about English versus Scottish even before the news report on the radio briefly mentions the referendum on devolution in the Scottish Parliament. Similarly I could see the right wing Daily Mail audience loving the implied vigilante idea in the early section of the film of a posh British woman doing her duty to protect the country by prowling the streets and braving nightclubs in order to interrogate people about where they came from, eventually leading to bashing unwary Czech immigrants over the head with rocks!

Part of the delicate nature of these scenes is that the alien has her own agenda but is unwittingly raising all of these class and social issues in the minds of the people she talks to (building to the scene of treating the disfigured gentleman without any ingrained societal prejudices). Maybe that dawning awareness is what leads to her change? Maybe the aliens were not aware of how from the moment they begin interacting with other human beings that they get folded into the society and subject to its pressures, whether they intend to be or understand those pressures, or not.

There's also that absolutely perfectly composed, very brief shot of the homeless person sitting on a sheet in front of a wall with a CCTV camera on it. You don't just have extraterrestrial aliens observing you. The point isn't laboured, but it's there.

This leads me to say that I found this a very funny film! While it is obviously all played deadly serious I loved that the man hunting early section of the film is really just a sci-fi embellished version of a great Monty Python sketch! It even has a great slinky snake charmer musical score for those moments! (That amazing underwater scene certainly bears a debt to the work of Chris Cunningham, particularly flex) Or the way that when one of the men makes a comment that there is something wrong with Johansson's eye that she immediately enters a lock up garage to get the once over from her motorcyclist companion, as if she needed a tune up! And of course during the scene of Johansson being led around a supermarket, I was pleased that the national beverage, Irn-Bru, turned up on the shelves in the background!

But back to the culture clash stuff. I'm as amused by Johansson herself being confronted by Tommy Cooper and Deacon Blue as much as I think it is beautifully appropriate that the alien herself is trying to make some kind of contact! This contact itself is enigmatic. Is the alien seduced by human culture? I'm not sure, as even in the second half of the film the alien shows much more affinity for nature itself than with human beings - with the swirling atmospheres of fog, wind, ice and snow, and especially with the tiny insects such as the ant found on the dead woman at the beginning of the film and the trapped fly in the window at the turning point moment of letting her last victim go.(Which I kind of think is the more important moment than simply the alien feeling an affinity with the disfigured man and retrieving him, as she had already led him to that point despite a more sensitive, or rather subtler, form of seduction prior to that). It also ties in with the woman who dies in a futile attempt to rescue her pet dog from the raging tide.

Is the alien awakened to the simple nature of existence on another planet? Is she just running away from or troubled by the callousness of her actions? I particularly like the second half of the film as the alien 'goes on the run', yet it appears to not be a serious attempt to run away but just a spur of the moment act of going off reservation. One that is doomed to failure less because of the motorcycling pursuers but in the way that her human facade isn't good enough to allow the alien to fully pretend to be a real human being.

While The Man Who Fell To Earth is often raised in discussions of this film, I think this final section in which the alien isn't physically able to assimilate by partaking in human pleasures is where Under The Skin significantly differs, as in The Man Who Fell To Earth Thomas Newton ends up 'fallen', corrupted by human vices and almost forcibly assimilated, having to renege on his previous identity to fit untroublingly into his newly allocated position in human society. Here our alien seems to want to enjoy the dream, as in the scene of exploring, or abandoning, herself in a bedroom mirror as a real woman (unlike Thomas Newton she is not going to shed her appliances to reveal her true nature to the human in the next room), and is trying to mentally adapt to human life and culture (by getting more 'socialised' - going from driver to passenger, from predator to prey, from dilapidated houses to actually entering currently in-use human habitats, from purely relating to others through sex to learning about other traits that human beings have) but is constantly being made aware of her fundamental physical otherness. There obviously wasn't any consideration by the creators of the body that there would be a need to eat or actually physically have sex, as it wouldn't have been essential to the core mission.

Which leads to that commune with nature and the rape finale in which the attacker (after a brief encounter earlier in which he uses almost the exact same dialogue as the alien had to her male victims earlier) removes too many layers in his eagerness. Though I have to say that the most shockingly violent moment for me wasn't that final one, it was the ripping open of the top layer of the duffel coat to expose the garishly pinkish-purple top underneath. Just the colour of that top (shown earlier in the film during the disrobing and beckoning sequences) is too intimate at that moment and in that sequence it shows in no uncertain terms that the enticer has had the tables turned and been violated. Is the violation a natural outcome of having a body that has been literally engineered for maximum sexual attrativeness in order drive men wild with animalistic lust? Which I guess is where a gender critique of the film comes in, in which the woman who might not yet know the power of her body and attractiveness has that power taken away from them by the men who try to possess her. Yet if she lets no one possess her, she is seen as cold, evil, potentially predatory and perhaps not even human.

For me, the rape sequence and its aftermath reminded me very strongly of the end of Catherine Breillat's Fat Girl then sequeing into the firey climax of Daft Punk's Electroma. Also the Breillat film in that final section features a number of sequences of threatening traffic, also present in Under The Skin. It was extremely moving (once the alien abdicated their responsibilty for feeding men into a processing plant, she suddenly became a touching character!) and in a way quite tragic as that tenuous moment of potential interspecies, even interstellar, communication and understanding goes up in smoke. Yet in that beautiful final shot (kind of the inverse of the opening of Prometheus!), perhaps the alien truly has mutated into an element that can now become a part of our world.
Last edited by colinr0380 on Thu Jan 31, 2019 2:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2014)

#87 Post by jbeall » Mon Jul 21, 2014 10:01 am

I can see why the film provokes such a range of reactions, but I thought it was great. The entire film remains enigmatic--some might say difficult--because it works very hard to keep the audience from identifying with any of the characters. ScarJo's alien is a cipher, to say nothing of a serial killer, and the men she seduces/kills aren't sympathetic characters.
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The disfigured man is the exception here, but identification is more a matter of pity, since he mostly speaks in one-word utterances and, well... he's disfigured. Along those lines, his disfigurement could be why she lets him go: if she's after the skins of her prey, she could be rejecting his as unsuitable.

The end of the film played with my sympathies especially well. When the alien is about to be raped, I probably wasn't alone in wanting her to summon the black goo and kill her attacker. (Only then did it occur to me that she needed to be at her lair for that to work.) But then, after the attacker tore her flesh in the back and the alien removed her skin, I lost that sympathy for her, and the effect was heightened somewhat because the alien is holding its "mask," which is looking at her with an expression of horror. Obviously, the horror was at the attempted rape, but it effectively stands in for the audience's reaction at finally seeing the alien's actual form. Then, when the would-be rapist throws gasoline on her and sets her on fire, I was somewhat relieved, though I still wanted the alien to at least kill him before it expired.
I apologize if this all comes across as a very solipsistic reading, but I also think that the film is very much playing with audience emotions--the second meaning of "under the skin"--the eerie score makes this all the more apparent.

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Re: Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2014)

#88 Post by DarkImbecile » Mon Aug 11, 2014 1:45 pm

I finally managed to catch this on Blu-ray last night, and while I definitely think there's plenty of value here and consider it one of the better movies of the year so far (oh, that glorious silverware-in-the-toilet soundtrack), my initial reaction was a little underwhelmed relative to the level of anticipation I brought into it (though, like mfunk, I'm still thinking about it instead of getting work done, so my evaluation is subject to change). My disappointment had less to do with the coldness of the narrative and the lack of empathy for the characters, but that the visual power of the more stylized scenes so often and for so long gave way to the previously derided "cash cab" cinematography; I would have traded the admittedly interesting gimmick of the "real" interactions between Scarlett Johansson and the passerby for scripted sequences more coherently joined to the visual sensibilities of the rest of the movie.

I am surprised that the scene that was for me the most disconcerting and jarring in the film hasn't been mentioned by anyone in this thread yet:
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The death of the family on the beach and the complete disinterest in the abandoned toddler by SJ and the motorcyclist. Maybe it's only because I have a 16-month-old daughter, but the contrast between the aliens and their prey was never more heightened for me than during the humans' attempts to save each other* (and, moronically, a dog) while Scarlett watches stone-faced from the rocks.
I think the fact that the film manages the transition from this sequence to a point of extracting some measure of compassion from the audience for SJ's character by the end of the film without ever providing any further insight into her character's motivations or reasoning is more impressive work by Glazer than a cheat or an abandonment of the film's principles.
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*Also, I love my wife and all, but if she drowns herself trying to rescue a dog, and I have to choose between potentially drowning myself to attempt to rescue her or stay with my helpless infant, well... sorry, sweetheart.

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Re: Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2014)

#89 Post by swo17 » Mon Aug 11, 2014 1:52 pm

I guess that last spoiler is only really a spoiler for your wife. 8-[

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Re: Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2014)

#90 Post by zedz » Mon Aug 11, 2014 5:44 pm

DarkImbecile wrote:
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*Also, I love my wife and all, but if she drowns herself trying to rescue a dog, and I have to choose between potentially drowning myself to attempt to rescue her or stay with my helpless infant, well... sorry, sweetheart.
I think the "potentially" in that sentence will be the sticking point.

Anyway, have I got a film for you! (and that really is one of the best of the year).

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Re: Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2014)

#91 Post by swo17 » Mon Aug 11, 2014 5:46 pm

Or maybe DarkImbecile just outed himself as Gael García Bernal from The Loneliest Planet!

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Re: Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2014)

#92 Post by DarkImbecile » Mon Aug 11, 2014 6:05 pm

Thanks for the recommendation, zedz; I'll check it out. And swo, my wife would thrilled if the plot twist was that I was secretly Gael Garcia Bernal.

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Re: Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2014)

#93 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Thu Aug 14, 2014 6:47 am

Watched it last night. Still trying to unscramble either it or myself, but the overwhelming feeling I had is that this is how you do a horror film now which part of this certainly is. Some of it might be more style over substance, especially as nearly every character is hard to decipher (they don't even have names). But as a totality, it works for me.

And I'm not sure I'll ever want to see it again.
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The child left behind on the beach might be the most disturbing thing I've ever seen.

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Re: Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2014)

#94 Post by colinr0380 » Thu Aug 14, 2014 12:21 pm

The moment when he tries to stand up is heartbreaking.

I do have some sympathy for DarkImbecile's point. The family killing itself over the plight of the family dog is a bit of a stupid thing to do. Yet emotionally I could sympathise: I would try and save my cat from drowning in a similar situation, and would probably end up getting into trouble myself by attempting to do so. Though luckily I don't think that my cat would be silly enough to get itself swept out to sea in the first place!

And while the dramatics in the scene can feel a little contrived, I think it is successful much more because of the magnificent editing pattern on display in that sequence cutting back and forth between isolated individuals. The dog is trapped a little too far out in its own shot, the wife is halfway between the shore and the dog, the husband just on the edge of the shore. Now the dog has disappeared (empty shot) and the wife is starting to swim back but is getting into trouble. The husband is not there yet, still just about savable by the Czech guy. Now the wife has gone and the husband is being pulled back to shore only to immediately run off again.

There is a beautiful, scary tension there. It is as if we are the watching alien, their impassive gaze moving from one individual back to the other, waiting for the moment when the Czech guy is left alone. But also it works as a metaphor encapsulating the wider film and anticipating key later scenes: the drowning characters are separated from each other and (briefly) suspended, trapped between two worlds, frighteningly aware that they are on the edge of their existence and about to disappear into an unknown realm beneath the roiling waves without trace.
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Re: Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2014)

#95 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Thu Aug 14, 2014 12:38 pm

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It's especially upsetting considering how close to the tide he was. That hit me hard because I had a bad experience with water when I was a little bit older than he was.

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Re: Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2014)

#96 Post by domino harvey » Sun Aug 31, 2014 6:59 pm

I see I'm not the only one to be unsurprised by the varied responses to this one, as such an aesthetic-driven film is bound to be subjectively received (more so than usual)-- if you don't find the film beautiful or lock into its tone, this is going to be torture to sit through. But despite my own lack of patience with the go-to art house model of flitting trepidation masquerading as dramatic ambiguity, this film's masterful grasp of the model shows anything can work in the right hands. I found this hypnotic and eerie and a treat for the eyes and ears, and that coupled with its ambiguity makes it a strong tonal match to one of last year's best films, Upstream Color (another divisive pic), and there's only so much someone can do to impart to non-believers the not quite tangible beauty of either of these films. Either you find them "attractive" or you don't. Pity for those on a different wavelength, I guess, or pity for me depending where you stand!

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Re: Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2014)

#97 Post by YnEoS » Mon Sep 01, 2014 12:29 am

I think Under the Skin and Upstream Color use ambiguity in somewhat different ways, which might be interesting to flesh out a bit. Although both omit any sort of standard sci-fi naming/explanations of what's going on and why, I think the events of Under the Skin are more comprehensible in relation to each other. A simple pattern is established of what Scarlett Johansson is doing on earth, the pattern is violated and most of the motivations and emotional shifts are left for the viewer to read into it or speculate on. But the bigger picture isn't hinted at much, and there's not really any reason to ask about the overall purpose of the events in the film, except to note that we don't know them.

With Upstream Color on the other hand, I don't think we get such a neat division of comprehensible events and details unknowable to the viewer. A lot of scenes and characters have vague connections that are hinted at, but never fully answered. I think the result is that the viewer is prompted to speculate more about the possibilities of the overall scenario and try to puzzle things out, or simply just enjoy the ambiguity, questions raised, and character interaction that results. While I think in both cases you would get just as far trying to recount all the background details to someone (without reading the book or listening to interviews with the director), the way its presented and the overall experience is quite different.

I would agree that with both how much you get out of the experience presented is very much dependent on the viewers comfort with ambiguity, willingness to go along with the film, and perhaps what value the viewer places on what the film is doing. I really like both films, but I had much different emotional reactions to each outside of simply the difference in tone and mood.

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Re: Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2014)

#98 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Thu Sep 11, 2014 8:57 am

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I'm still bothered by the scene with the child. I know a few people who get extremely bothered by even inferences that a child has died in a movie, which I didn't quite understand before. My mind had been changed on it way before seeing this, but now I get it totally.
Theory about the ending, which one may or may not find interesting.
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What I found interesting was that her most human response was to the attacker, which was to defend herself then run away. One theory I have is that she does that because she doesn't want the cover to be blown, but finally gives in when her facade is shattered during the eventual attack. In some weird way it speaks maybe to the "universality" of such a horrid thing that a being not the same of us, reacts as we would do, so in some way the character comes full circle at that point.

The weirdest thing is, is the character I feel most sorry for (2nd to the child of course) is the rapist. His reaction to the punctured skin was palpable, and his response in killing it was justified if not a little reactionary. When something is good I always think about the story after, and I can imagine that whatever dysfunction he had that lead to such awful urges has grown exponentially because he either has to live in silence or be branded crazy for believing in aliens.

flyonthewall2983
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Re: Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2014)

#99 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Thu Sep 11, 2014 4:12 pm

A few more points of discussion I'd like to add.
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I don't think she was any more capable of killing her victims herself than she was the attacker. She was clearly designed to lure the men into being submerged. If I have one complaint about the movie, it was seeing them under it. It could have held some mystery if you didn't see what happened, and maybe more terror if you only saw the aftermath.

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swo17
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Re: Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2014)

#100 Post by swo17 » Thu Sep 11, 2014 4:16 pm

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That scene still leaves a great deal of mystery as to what is going on here, and provides one of the film's most chilling visual and aural moments, so no, getting rid of it would have been a huge mistake.

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