Why here?
Because it's... It's nowhere.
“My soul is a hidden orchestra; I know not what instruments, what fiddle strings and harps, drums and tambourines I sound and clash inside myself. All I hear is the symphony. “- Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet.
An old proverb says “The eyes are the window to the soul”. The opening shot of Under the Skin shows an infinite void thru an artificial human eye, giving us an early clue to the film’s theme. Masterfully done in Kubrick’s 2001 style.
Under the Skin, or The girl who fell to earth as Allan Fish would call it, follows the emotional journey of an alien invader. Jonathan Glazer brings Abbas Kiarostami style into the science fiction genre.
The main character, Laura (Scarlett Johansson), is a soulless alien. Disguised with a woman’s body, she introduces herself anonymously in our planet. A dead body tell us it’s an ongoing process, they are constantly present among us and this story is not an isolated event. Ants and flies appear as symbolic elements to give us a glance of how human beings are seen by those alien creatures. Laura meant to be a sort of black widow, attracting lonely men for dubious reasons, on the service of their civilization. In a recurrent scene, inside a house, those men get trapped on the spiders net, a mysterious black fluid. We also see a man on a motorbike, played by Jeremy McWilliams, a professional rider who delivers some wonderful images driving on Scottish wet roads. His character is a kind of foremen, who examines Laura’s eyes constantly, looking for the threatening awakening of a soul. It happened before with other girls, and with it comes rebellion.
At first is not easy to connect with the film, events unfold slowly and ambiguously. Wonderment only emerge when we start to put our attention where the action in fact relies, the eyes of the alien girl, where a soul tries to breakthrough.
A disturbing scene shows a toddler weeping, left alone on a cold beach, while Laura walks away. It’s heartless has it could be. On the opposite side a major turning point occurs on a particular brilliant scene. Laura falls on the street with anonymous passers helping her to stand up, a gesture of kindness happens spontaneously on the sidewalk. Eventually the girl comes aware of the changes she’s going thru, looks into her eyes in the mirror and knows she has to run away. Laura tries to become human, to feel emotions and pleasure, but ultimately she as to deal with the limitations of her nature, which she can’t overcome. On an ironic ending she succumbs on the hands of human cruelty.
Since there are many abstract and ambiguous events going on, all kind of questions arise. If we approach this film as a regular science fiction endeavor, scenes will lead to doubts and thesis more than to clarification. Under the Skin comes from a book from Michael Faber but reportedly the connections between them are sparse. Along with the white serial-killer van, there are too many similarities to sexual harassment to be ignored. The science fiction element could be just a plot trick to exchange genres, and the black fluid could work as a sort of symbolism to a sexual act, instead of a meaningless plot device. Speculation rises necessarily, the lack of explanation will surely be uncomfortable to many but I can’t see much benefits on that approach. The temptation to find subtexts and allegories can only diminish the work of Jonathan Glazer. There is room to conceptual thinkers but the film gets more impressive when we try to understand the character presented to us. The facts are abstract the feelings quite explicit.
The plot really resumes on the birthing of a soul thru the contact with the human species. The film believes our society can help to incept a soul on an alien, being that a fantasy, a hope or an odd believe.
Under the Skin feels very much related to “Taste of Cherry” by Abbas Kiarostami. The improvised conversations take place in suburban Glasgow instead of Iranian rural villages, but still dialogues unfold inside cars or thru car windows, using stationary mounted cameras. Many of the film scenes are captured with hidden cameras, the sidewalk scene uses cameras from a passing car, a store and an apartment windows, looking for a spontaneous response from the unaware crowd. Like on many of Kiarostami works Jonathan Glazer combines cinema with the capture of real life without the director filter. People on their everyday life, wearing Celtic football scarves, never before seem to find a place on alien movies.
Glazer’s minimal style is constructed with very shallow shots on the urban environment that contrast with deepness achieved on Scottish landscape scenes. Silence is constant, favoring our anguish, and along with very dry quotidian sounds gives even more strength to the magnificent score by Mica Levi. The director also brings some of the spirit and style of neorealism into science fiction genre with the presence of non-professional actors, informal conversations with weird funny accents, the lens focus imperfections, natural light and a sometimes a rough finishing. Glasgow streets seems to come from a Ken Loach’s film, making the film more believable, easier to connect emotionally and more able to raise intimacy.
Jonathan Glazer is known mostly for his work on music clips and commercials. Sexy Beast (2000), Birth (2004) were his previous experiences in full features were interesting but not overwhelming. Ten years are reported with Glazer wondering about Under the Skin, and well used they were once he decided to focus on the perception of change. Built on a sort of coming of age grammar he tells the story from the alien’s point of view. The story advances not thru events but almost exclusively with the actress face expressions. He had tried it before, on “Birth” he has a four minutes close-up on Nicole Kidman's face. Scarlett Johansen is an actress with a very thoughtful choice of projects and able to deliver in very different spectrums of work. She prove it again here. As one of the men said “Your eyes. There's summat about your eyes.”
Under the Skin could reach far more emotional involvement but introduces an unusual style and thematic approach to alien invasion resulting on a truly inspirational and original work. It builds slowly as a memorable movie, but I’m quite sure there are few recent movies within the genre that will resist time like Glazer’s work.
Under the Skin is built on set pieces with predictable results, like the Free Jazz improvisations by John Coltrane. Aesthetically brilliant, its purity comes close to what should be the essence of cinema.
Watching the closing credits I recalled Sophia Loren’s words:
“If you haven't cried, your eyes can't be beautiful. “
Because it's... It's nowhere.
“My soul is a hidden orchestra; I know not what instruments, what fiddle strings and harps, drums and tambourines I sound and clash inside myself. All I hear is the symphony. “- Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet.
An old proverb says “The eyes are the window to the soul”. The opening shot of Under the Skin shows an infinite void thru an artificial human eye, giving us an early clue to the film’s theme. Masterfully done in Kubrick’s 2001 style.
Under the Skin, or The girl who fell to earth as Allan Fish would call it, follows the emotional journey of an alien invader. Jonathan Glazer brings Abbas Kiarostami style into the science fiction genre.
The main character, Laura (Scarlett Johansson), is a soulless alien. Disguised with a woman’s body, she introduces herself anonymously in our planet. A dead body tell us it’s an ongoing process, they are constantly present among us and this story is not an isolated event. Ants and flies appear as symbolic elements to give us a glance of how human beings are seen by those alien creatures. Laura meant to be a sort of black widow, attracting lonely men for dubious reasons, on the service of their civilization. In a recurrent scene, inside a house, those men get trapped on the spiders net, a mysterious black fluid. We also see a man on a motorbike, played by Jeremy McWilliams, a professional rider who delivers some wonderful images driving on Scottish wet roads. His character is a kind of foremen, who examines Laura’s eyes constantly, looking for the threatening awakening of a soul. It happened before with other girls, and with it comes rebellion.
At first is not easy to connect with the film, events unfold slowly and ambiguously. Wonderment only emerge when we start to put our attention where the action in fact relies, the eyes of the alien girl, where a soul tries to breakthrough.
A disturbing scene shows a toddler weeping, left alone on a cold beach, while Laura walks away. It’s heartless has it could be. On the opposite side a major turning point occurs on a particular brilliant scene. Laura falls on the street with anonymous passers helping her to stand up, a gesture of kindness happens spontaneously on the sidewalk. Eventually the girl comes aware of the changes she’s going thru, looks into her eyes in the mirror and knows she has to run away. Laura tries to become human, to feel emotions and pleasure, but ultimately she as to deal with the limitations of her nature, which she can’t overcome. On an ironic ending she succumbs on the hands of human cruelty.
Since there are many abstract and ambiguous events going on, all kind of questions arise. If we approach this film as a regular science fiction endeavor, scenes will lead to doubts and thesis more than to clarification. Under the Skin comes from a book from Michael Faber but reportedly the connections between them are sparse. Along with the white serial-killer van, there are too many similarities to sexual harassment to be ignored. The science fiction element could be just a plot trick to exchange genres, and the black fluid could work as a sort of symbolism to a sexual act, instead of a meaningless plot device. Speculation rises necessarily, the lack of explanation will surely be uncomfortable to many but I can’t see much benefits on that approach. The temptation to find subtexts and allegories can only diminish the work of Jonathan Glazer. There is room to conceptual thinkers but the film gets more impressive when we try to understand the character presented to us. The facts are abstract the feelings quite explicit.
The plot really resumes on the birthing of a soul thru the contact with the human species. The film believes our society can help to incept a soul on an alien, being that a fantasy, a hope or an odd believe.
Under the Skin feels very much related to “Taste of Cherry” by Abbas Kiarostami. The improvised conversations take place in suburban Glasgow instead of Iranian rural villages, but still dialogues unfold inside cars or thru car windows, using stationary mounted cameras. Many of the film scenes are captured with hidden cameras, the sidewalk scene uses cameras from a passing car, a store and an apartment windows, looking for a spontaneous response from the unaware crowd. Like on many of Kiarostami works Jonathan Glazer combines cinema with the capture of real life without the director filter. People on their everyday life, wearing Celtic football scarves, never before seem to find a place on alien movies.
Glazer’s minimal style is constructed with very shallow shots on the urban environment that contrast with deepness achieved on Scottish landscape scenes. Silence is constant, favoring our anguish, and along with very dry quotidian sounds gives even more strength to the magnificent score by Mica Levi. The director also brings some of the spirit and style of neorealism into science fiction genre with the presence of non-professional actors, informal conversations with weird funny accents, the lens focus imperfections, natural light and a sometimes a rough finishing. Glasgow streets seems to come from a Ken Loach’s film, making the film more believable, easier to connect emotionally and more able to raise intimacy.
Jonathan Glazer is known mostly for his work on music clips and commercials. Sexy Beast (2000), Birth (2004) were his previous experiences in full features were interesting but not overwhelming. Ten years are reported with Glazer wondering about Under the Skin, and well used they were once he decided to focus on the perception of change. Built on a sort of coming of age grammar he tells the story from the alien’s point of view. The story advances not thru events but almost exclusively with the actress face expressions. He had tried it before, on “Birth” he has a four minutes close-up on Nicole Kidman's face. Scarlett Johansen is an actress with a very thoughtful choice of projects and able to deliver in very different spectrums of work. She prove it again here. As one of the men said “Your eyes. There's summat about your eyes.”
Under the Skin could reach far more emotional involvement but introduces an unusual style and thematic approach to alien invasion resulting on a truly inspirational and original work. It builds slowly as a memorable movie, but I’m quite sure there are few recent movies within the genre that will resist time like Glazer’s work.
Under the Skin is built on set pieces with predictable results, like the Free Jazz improvisations by John Coltrane. Aesthetically brilliant, its purity comes close to what should be the essence of cinema.
Watching the closing credits I recalled Sophia Loren’s words:
“If you haven't cried, your eyes can't be beautiful. “