Under the Skin. (15)
Directed by Jonathan Glazer.
Starring Scarlett Johansson, Paul Branigan, Michael Morland, Krystof Hadek, Adam Pearson, Jeremy McWilliams, Steve Keys. 108 mins. Out on Blu-ray.
The year's most audacious and perfectly realised piece of pure cinema is now available to view at your individual domestic pleasure. Taking one of cinema's lowest genres – the alien in sexy female form who comes to earth to hunt human males – Under The Skin creates a haunting and mesmerising vision of what it is to be human and what cinema can be. Its cinema release was sharply divisive; for every reviewer prepared to award it five stars there was a disgruntled viewer angrily denouncing it as pretentious, plot-less piffle. The film is so damn divisive that having seen it again, I no longer can tell if it is masterpiece or a hollow gimmick.
At the cinema Under The Skin mesmerised and enthralled me a way few films ever do. It was 2001 set in white van in Govan; The Girl Who Fell To Earth done in the style of Taxi Cab Confessions; and it was spellbinding from the first moment to the last. It was one of those films that as you sit watching it, you desperately pray it will not suddenly lose its specialness.
But when I sat down to watch it again, it just didn't have the same effect. Maybe I was a bit tired; not in the mood after a heatwave day; even with the curtains closed I just couldn't get it dark enough to fully appreciate the visuals. (Damn these light evenings.) Still, whatever excuses were made, the fact remained that what had once seemed to be a rich and full vision, now seemed rather thin and meagre.
In one of the short Making Of features on the disc, director Glazer and his co-scriptwriter Walter Campbell talk about the task of adapting Michael Faber's source novel and how over the ten years of development they gradually pared it down to the bare essentials. Now I appreciate the pleasures of editing – the liberation of letting go of something you once felt was essential, or finding a way to get across in one line what you had used a paragraph on. But I'm also aware of how you can read back in a month or so and see that what is left now no longer has the meaning or force it once had.
Faber's novel is apparently a rich mix of satire and philosophical exploration. The film offers up no explanation or rationalization, just pure sensation. The sensations are remarkable but seeing it again you may notice how limited. There's a white room, a black room, some undercover footage in the city, some exquisite landscape footage in the countryside. In the cinema, its sparse ambiguity had seemed entirely justified: nothing was explained, but everything seemed clear. This time I began to wonder if there was anything behind it, if there was any real substance connecting these brilliantly realised individual scenes.
Still I did appreciate the central performance a bit more. Johansson's English accent is remarkable for being so unremarkable, you can't believe it isn't her natural speaking voice. A lot of film is taken up with her interacting with unsuspecting locals. Some years back there was a programme called Taxi Cab Confessions in which cabbies were trained up to coax stories out of their passengers which were captured on hidden cameras and Johansson is doing something much the same here in her white van scenes. By being willing to be placed so far outside her comfort zone, she resonates most of the alien-ness the role requires simply by being. Exactly the same performance from an unknown actress probably wouldn't be as effective.
It's a rare experience to see a film from two different perspectives. I've been inside the film and I've been outside the film and inside is by far my favourite. I hope one day I can ingratiate myself back inside Under The Skin.
The extras.
10 mini features on the various aspects of production: camera, casting, editing, locations, music, poster design, production design, script, sound, visual effects. Each is about 5 minutes long and are more promotional than informative. The style in uniform – interviews with people against black backdrops, inter-cut with stills from the film. They talk earnestly and passionately about their work but they never quite give you the information you want to know.
Directed by Jonathan Glazer.
Starring Scarlett Johansson, Paul Branigan, Michael Morland, Krystof Hadek, Adam Pearson, Jeremy McWilliams, Steve Keys. 108 mins. Out on Blu-ray.
The year's most audacious and perfectly realised piece of pure cinema is now available to view at your individual domestic pleasure. Taking one of cinema's lowest genres – the alien in sexy female form who comes to earth to hunt human males – Under The Skin creates a haunting and mesmerising vision of what it is to be human and what cinema can be. Its cinema release was sharply divisive; for every reviewer prepared to award it five stars there was a disgruntled viewer angrily denouncing it as pretentious, plot-less piffle. The film is so damn divisive that having seen it again, I no longer can tell if it is masterpiece or a hollow gimmick.
At the cinema Under The Skin mesmerised and enthralled me a way few films ever do. It was 2001 set in white van in Govan; The Girl Who Fell To Earth done in the style of Taxi Cab Confessions; and it was spellbinding from the first moment to the last. It was one of those films that as you sit watching it, you desperately pray it will not suddenly lose its specialness.
But when I sat down to watch it again, it just didn't have the same effect. Maybe I was a bit tired; not in the mood after a heatwave day; even with the curtains closed I just couldn't get it dark enough to fully appreciate the visuals. (Damn these light evenings.) Still, whatever excuses were made, the fact remained that what had once seemed to be a rich and full vision, now seemed rather thin and meagre.
In one of the short Making Of features on the disc, director Glazer and his co-scriptwriter Walter Campbell talk about the task of adapting Michael Faber's source novel and how over the ten years of development they gradually pared it down to the bare essentials. Now I appreciate the pleasures of editing – the liberation of letting go of something you once felt was essential, or finding a way to get across in one line what you had used a paragraph on. But I'm also aware of how you can read back in a month or so and see that what is left now no longer has the meaning or force it once had.
Faber's novel is apparently a rich mix of satire and philosophical exploration. The film offers up no explanation or rationalization, just pure sensation. The sensations are remarkable but seeing it again you may notice how limited. There's a white room, a black room, some undercover footage in the city, some exquisite landscape footage in the countryside. In the cinema, its sparse ambiguity had seemed entirely justified: nothing was explained, but everything seemed clear. This time I began to wonder if there was anything behind it, if there was any real substance connecting these brilliantly realised individual scenes.
Still I did appreciate the central performance a bit more. Johansson's English accent is remarkable for being so unremarkable, you can't believe it isn't her natural speaking voice. A lot of film is taken up with her interacting with unsuspecting locals. Some years back there was a programme called Taxi Cab Confessions in which cabbies were trained up to coax stories out of their passengers which were captured on hidden cameras and Johansson is doing something much the same here in her white van scenes. By being willing to be placed so far outside her comfort zone, she resonates most of the alien-ness the role requires simply by being. Exactly the same performance from an unknown actress probably wouldn't be as effective.
It's a rare experience to see a film from two different perspectives. I've been inside the film and I've been outside the film and inside is by far my favourite. I hope one day I can ingratiate myself back inside Under The Skin.
The extras.
10 mini features on the various aspects of production: camera, casting, editing, locations, music, poster design, production design, script, sound, visual effects. Each is about 5 minutes long and are more promotional than informative. The style in uniform – interviews with people against black backdrops, inter-cut with stills from the film. They talk earnestly and passionately about their work but they never quite give you the information you want to know.
