By Keri O’Shea and Ben Bussey
Caution: the following discussion contains some moderate spoilers – although the film doesn’t necessarily have that much actual plot to spoil. Still, you might want to skip this if you’d prefer to go in cold…
Keri: Okay, so last night we went to see Under The Skin, a film perhaps a bit unfairly getting known because Scarlett Johannson gets her baps out in it. But I have to say, even now I’m not sure if I’d say I liked the film or not – which is surely to its credit, when you think how many films are oh-so easy to dismiss.
Ben: Yeah, I’m very much on the same page. I’m still not sure whether or not I enjoyed it as such, but I have been going over it in my mind almost constantly since. And no, that’s not just me mentally replaying the nude scenes.
Keri: It certainly gives you a lot to think about – and no, I’m not on about the nude scenes either (which I personally didn’t find gratuitous, and thought made sense – as much as the film made sense at all – with the plot). I mean, are we even sure, having thought it over for nearly 24 hours, what the alien being was doing exactly?
Ben: Not really, no. And honestly, if the film’s publicity hadn’t hammered the point home, I might not have even thought of her as an alien.
Keri: Good point.
Ben: But then, I guess the term ‘alien’ can apply across the board to any kind of outsider, which she very clearly is.
Keri: Yeah. Not knowing the novel (as I don’t at all), and without the film intro, you could see a lot of it as another Red, White & Blue scenario – a woman with severe issues, taking it out on men via fucking.
Ben: Or in this case, via taking them into some abstract dream space and enveloping them in some sort of dark matter… (I don’t know the novel either, I might add.)
Keri: Yeah. I mean, the subtext was definitely sexual. She’d learned enough crass come-on lines (which often worked well enough) and offered the promise of sex, disrobing as her partners/victims did. I wasn’t sure what to make of the dark matter thing though. What’s your take?
Ben: Well, using conventional sci-fi as a point of reference, I imagine it as some source of sustenance for the aliens. I would assume that it needs the men to be of a certain age – they all seemed to be around the mid-20s or thereabouts – and it obviously required them to have their juices flowing, as it were. There’s definitely a vampiric overtone to it, particularly given how she lures them sexually.
Keri: I was interested how it needed to be males, though. She seemed genuinely quite scared of human females. In a few respects, I thought a little – just a little – more exposition would have made the impact of various interesting plot lines greater.
Ben: Hmm. It’s an interesting and challenging approach, to provide basically no context – but I do find myself wondering if it might not be a bit of art for art’s sake.
Keri: It was right on the line for me. Lots of staring off into middle distance; you could suppose deep thought there, or just a lack of anything much. But then, I was engaged throughout and I can’t say I felt bored – though this may have been because I supposed, as per most films, we’d find out at least a bit more of what was going on!
Ben: Yeah, it held my attention as well. I think after not too long I came to realise there weren’t going to be any big explanations of any sort, and kind of accepted it. And ultimately, if there had been a big finale that made everything clear, that probably would have felt like a cop-out.
Keri: Oh, sure. As I say, just one or two more hints here and there would have improved the film, I think. I always find there’s a fine line between having the faith in your audience’s intelligence to NOT feel you have to tell them everything – and the distinct possibility that the filmmaker(s) don’t know either. One fills me with more confidence than the other.
Ben: I guess in this case, there’s always the novel too. I do find myself curious to read it now just to fill in the blanks, and sometimes I wonder if that’s half-intentional with book-to-film adaptations. Having said that, books and films are, and indeed should be seperate entities.
Keri: I think an adaptation should always work on its own as well – or it’s not really an adaptation.
Ben: Agreed, but I think we always have the sense that reading the novel will enhance the experience of a watching a film adaptation – that it will flesh it all out, as I should imagine it would in the case of Under the Skin.
Keri: You’d hope. It has to do both things I guess, please the readers and please those who may be coming to it fresh, like us.
Ben: I wonder if this is one of those ones like The Shining, in which the film has stripped down the narrative to its bear bones.
Keri: hee hee, bear bones.
[Keri engages in one of her favourite pasttimes, sharing a comedy image of a bear – Ben somehow fails to note his spelling mistake.]
Ben: I also said ‘stripped’ and ‘fleshed out’ earlier… So we touched on (heheh) the nudity earlier – obviously the presence of Scarlett Johansson in the buff is a huge sales point for the film. In some ways this reminds me of Spring Breakers – did you ever get around to that one?
Keri: No, not yet. Obviously my take on this as a straight* (*with the exception of Sherilyn Fenn circa Twin Peaks OBVIOUSLY) woman is going to differ from yours, but I didn’t think the nudity was too big a deal. It seemed to work with the story, as was. Didn’t feel crowbarred in in a cynical way, anyway. Even though the first scenes had a bare arse!
Ben: That’s fairly standard for Scarlett Johansson though. Remember the opening shot of Lost in Translation? Though that wasn’t a BARE arse.
Keri: It was wasn’t it? As she took the clothes off the other lass… OH you mean the other film, right. And I don’t actually remember the opening scene of Lost in Translation! See? Not the target audience.
[Ben engages in one of his favourite pasttimes – sharing a photo of a famous woman’s bottom, in this case the aforementioned opening shot of Lost in Translation.]
Ben: There you have it.
Keri: Right, thanks?
Ben: Anyway – I agree, the nudity in Under the Skin didn’t feel shoehorned in; I think it would have felt odd if there hadn’t been any given the subject matter. But at the same time it’s clearly a way to draw an audience – not to mention investors – that might not otherwise have been interested in something so bizarre. Much the same could be said of Scarlett Johansson’s casting full stop.
Keri: True. Though how that would have weighed against the semi-erect percies is another matter. I saw you mention this on FB and someone (I’ll not name them, in case they don’t want to be named) took issue with us noticing the lob-ons in the film. But, I maintain it’s still unusual to have full frontal male nudity in a film with a low rating, and to put it in there (heh) suggests a certain…bravery? I dunno. Certainly the male nude scenes were a lot more uncomfortable than Ms. Johansson’s. Especially once we worked out what would go on next.
Ben: Yeah, I remain very surprised they got away with showing erections in a 15. I certainly don’t consider it a bad thing – it’s not like any 15 year old male at least has never seen an erect penis. I’m just surprised to see attitudes change that much so fast.
Keri: Yeah. That it’s still a surprise is the surprise really.
Ben: It’s particularly interesting given the BBFC are meant to be cracking down on sexual violence… would it be fair to say there is an element of rape to what she does?
Keri: I think that says a lot about what’s deemed okay. Right, of course what eventually happens to the guys isn’t graphic murder, but it reminded me of Maniac in places… the prowler aspect. Just imagine the field day the BBFC would have had if it’d been a male alien luring naked women to their deaths!
Ben: Yeah, definitely. We’re not used to seeing the female as a sexual aggressor in that way. Like in a way it reminded me of Vampyres – the only real difference being, in that movie the women are hitchhiking. They’re being picked up, as opposed to being the ones doing the picking up.
Keri: Good comparison. That’s a very overlooked film…
Ben: Lots of tits and arse in that one too. Not nearly as much cock though.
Keri: The male penis was only captured on film for the first time in 1987. Until then they were all prosthetics, because they’d flee the scene.
Ben: Funny how, from a thematic standpoint. most of the films which Under The Skin brings to mind are really trashy B-movie horrors – the two most obvious being Lifeforce and Species.
Keri: Yeah, it’s a thinking man’s Species in a few respects! Got a bit Rabid in places as well.
Ben: True, I hadn’t thought of that.
Keri: Under The Skin did a good job of turning what on paper *sounds* very trashy, into a very arty, non-trashy style of film. I mean – alien disguised as hot, often naked woman with van seduces men and kills them…
Ben: Arthouse masquerading as grindhouse – which, again, it has in common with Spring Breakers. Only in this instance I really don’t think there can be any doubt that it’s first and foremost an art film. Which, I suppose, brings us to the question of Scarlett Johansson’s casting… Knowing that it was a low-budget British film, I did wonder going in whether it was appropriate casting – but within the first few minutes I realised those doubts were unfounded. Her casting made perfect sense.
Keri: I don’t think she had a tremendous amount to ‘do’ for the role, but it worked well for me. And quite a brave role, for a Hollywood starlet type.
Ben: It’s the alien aspect, really; Scarlett Johansson’s always had this slightly odd, detached quality which has served her well playing ‘alienated’ characters, as in Lost in Translation – so it makes sense that she could play an alien. But the main thing was, given this film took place in the most mundane places imaginable, it’s the last place you’d expect to see a Hollywood A-lister.
Keri: I liked that it took place in Scotland – and used so many obvious non-actors in it. It gave the film a very different feel than if it had been a cast of professionals. (Though I wonder if the implication of the female voice evidently learning French at the beginning, and the discovery of the ‘other’ female at the beginning too, was meant to imply that this *was* happening everywhere; it was good they picked an unusual setting here.)
Ben: Must admit, it did bring to mind Ben Wheatley for me: a genre set-up played out in a totally kitchen sink fashion.
Keri: Hmm, maybe. Less forced though.
Ben: Well, yeah.
Keri: And I have to say, whatever the dreamlike quality of Under The Skin, some scenes I found quite unsettling/difficult to watch.
Ben: The beach scene I found pretty harsh.
Keri: That got me too – the impassive way it played out, almost background. Also the predictable thing to happen would have been that the woman/her aide took the baby with them out of curiosity, or whatever, but they left it there to presumably be swept out to sea too. (Though the next scene has a baby crying – then you realise it’s a different kid in a car. They knew they were pressing buttons there but, not in an overt way all the same.)
Ben: I guess I understood the reason for it all – emphasising her complete lack of humanity and single-mindedness in her man-hunting objective at that point.
Keri: Oh absolutely. She wasn’t cruel – just more or less an automaton (other than that she seems to go AWOL at the end).
Ben: On a practical level the sequence was pretty alarming too. I did find myself wondering how the hell they did it – the combination of those waves and those rocks looked properly lethal! And it certainly looked like it was all shot on camera for real.
Keri: It did. It was all well done. The scene with the lad with what looked like neurofibromatosis made me a bit uncomfortable as well, somehow.
Ben: Absolutely – which I’m sure was the desired effect. That sequence certainly seems to be the key turning point.
Keri: She made no distinction between him and anyone else, but this meant the things she was saying to him made me cringe on his behalf.
Ben: On the one hand it feels cruel, on the other you can’t help asking whether he’s ever had a woman come onto him before.
Keri: I’m just reading, as an aside, that none of the men lured into the van knew they were being filmed until afterwards. That would explain why they were so natural!
Ben: On some level I found myself almost happy for him – which is of course inappropriate given we know she plans to kill him.
Keri: I just felt on his behalf that he was expecting something awful – even though he was pinching himself – but then it had the false escape thing as well, layering insult onto injury. Though how the hell he got away….who knows…
Ben: But one of the many unanswered questions. Did she free him in a moment of sympathy? Did the dark stuff reject him because of his condition? I suppose it would seem she chose to free him, as she goes on the run immediately after, or – once again – seems to at least.
Keri: Maybe. SO many maybes… I do think this’ll be seen as one of the most important sci-fi films of recent years. It has the power to divide viewers. It does things differently.
Ben: I think so too. And the more I reflect, I think I can safely say that I DID enjoy it. Ultimately, I don’t think any film which leaves you with this much to think about can be bad. And the fact that we get to see Scarlett Johansson butt nekkid several times – just the icing on the cake.
Keri: Ha ha! I stand by my initial verdict, anyway – Bergman meets Earth Girls Are Easy. And agreed – it’s a rare pleasure to watch a film which defies predictability.
Ben: Between that and ‘the thinking man’s Species’ you’ve got a couple of surefire DVD cover quotes, if there’s any justice.
Under the Skin is out now in UK cinemas from StudioCanal.