London Film Festival Review: Under the Skin (2013) - NP Approved

Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Paul Brannigan, Jessica Mance
Director: Jonathan Glazer
Country: UK
Genre: Sci-Fi
Official Trailer: Here

Editor’s Notes: The following review is part of our coverage of the BFI London Film Festival. For more information on the festival visit http://www.bfi.org.uk/lff and follow the event on Twitter at @bfi.

Marking Jonathan Glazer’s return to the camera nine years after his last feature, Birth (2004), Under The Skin is the triumphant return of an admired and innovative filmmaker. Garnering critical attention from across the globe, responses range from enthusiastic praise for Glazer to utter abhorrence. The film is certainly a divider of sorts; audiences love it or hate it, there are no half measures. The leading actress has also contributed to the film’s persistent spotlight; Scarlett Johansson, known for her mediocre mainstream portrayals (Avengers Assemble, We Bought A Zoo) as well as personal controversies has struck gold in Under The Skin. In what is clearly a match made in heaven between Glazer and Johansson, the previously unexceptional actress has firmly established her dramatic capabilities; her sultry, inhumanly sinister performance is undoubtedly the landmark of her career.

Credited as Laura, although never addressed by any name in the film, Johansson portrays an ominous, otherworldly entity in Under The Skin. Outwardly human but inwardly alien, the character stalks men on the secluded roads of Glasgow in a large white van, where she picks them up and leads them to an isolated location in which their mysterious demise is met with. She relentlessly continues her daily pickings until by chance, she happens across a kindly Scottish man who takes her in and thus, her humanly evolution begins.

Under The Skin is a tantalizingly abstract and sultry thriller crafted to cinematic excellence. Finding the perfect balance between explicit and implicit, Glazer has successfully forged a filmic masterpiece that offers an audience a previously unknown experience; the perspective of a foreign being.

Inspired by Michel Faber’s novel of the same name, Under The Skin is a tantalizingly abstract and sultry thriller crafted to cinematic excellence. Finding the perfect balance between explicit and implicit, Glazer has successfully forged a filmic masterpiece that offers an audience a previously unknown experience; the perspective of a foreign being. Glazer himself has stated that his intention was to provide an alien lens for the audience to comprehend society through and he executes this objective exceptionally well. Behaviours that the alien exhibits are bereft of any logical foundation that humanity can understand; the shocking beach scene is particularly striking in this context. Glazer deliberately places the audience in positions that are in direct contention with the creature’s moral standing. In certain scenes, he has set ups that intentionally attempt to evoke the typically human debate of what is right and wrong. With this present, he then in the same scene uses this elicited thought pattern to further alienate the foreign character; in these moments, her complete inhumanity is shown. Next to our delusions of morality that Glazer educes, she is totally devoid of such cloudiness. And thus, Glazer has successfully eradicated any tethers of relation that the audience might find; he wholly crushes the weak idea that perhaps under the skin, there is humanity. He simultaneously addresses society’s biggest misconception in these moments: pleasing appearances often only do go skin deep.

As one would expect, the entire atmosphere of the film is foreign; Glazer has coaxed the audience into the feeling of alienation despite the fact that the film is set in a city identical to any large and bustling society. He achieves this through his abstract technique. For example, the sequences of men being ‘consumed’ aren’t reminiscent of any alien consumption that has ever been explored on screen before. Their fate remains blurry whilst Glazer explores this through what the audience can only assume are metaphors; continually lavished with the identical scene of the unwary male following in the footsteps of the stripping female and slowly being submerged in the ground that the audience has just witnessed her walk across, this presents the viewer with a number of reasonable and logical explanations. That is before of course, the audience remembers that Under The Skin is devoid of humanly reason and logic, traits confined only to the psyches of humanity. These scenes don’t require explanation simply because the film doesn’t conform to the cinematic expectations of humankind. Like the subject matter, the film is as alien as the premise; it cannot be predicted, explained or comprehended that is it what makes the film so captivating. It’s this aspect of Under The Skin that some critics simply can’t palate; because this film follows no previous filmmaking formula, no filmic convention or typicality, it is positively alien to watch. Despite being at the heart of much of the film’s debate, this is easily the most commendable aspect of the film. Under The Skin is as unique and inventive as films get, offering a totally refreshing and new experience that is totally thrilling and enthralling to behold.

As well as Glazer’s well-established innovative flair, a truly alarming music score also supports Under The Skin. From the initial shots of a lens, a pupil and a sphere accompanied by a shrieking violin compilation, the sound effects truly set the audience on a nerve-wracking edge. The sound score like the narrative and dramatic structure (if indeed we can apply such conventional terms to Under The Skin) is unheard of: like much of the film, it follows no pattern and resembles no music score heard before. Hans Zimmer and John Williams are nowhere to be found in a musical endeavour that is neither happy nor sad; it simply exists to accompany the film and add to the foreign and ever-alien mise-en-scene. Like the premise of the film, the sound effects are chilling; a particularly harrowing scene involving an unfortunate male suspended in a strange acidic liquid incorporates incredibly strange sound effects to accompany his helpless movements. He is ostensibly contained in a liquid medium, yet his movements are accompanied by unexplainable crunching noises, as if he were encased in lose chalk and was struggling to move. Scenes such as this, once again, cannot be explained by mere mortals and why should they? Under The Skin abandons any such hope of explanation at the door.

The true silver lining of Under The Skin, the touch that sets it apart from the rest is the truly stellar performance of Scarlett Johansson. She finally gets to shine in a career-defining role that should garner her critical acclaim across the board. Her praying mantis-like composure of the foreign femme fatale is captivating: the way in which she transitions from charming sultry seductress to emotionless, detached enigma is astounding.

The true silver lining of Under The Skin, the touch that sets it apart from the rest is the truly stellar performance of Scarlett Johansson. She finally gets to shine in a career-defining role that should garner her critical acclaim across the board. Her praying mantis-like composure of the foreign femme fatale is captivating: the way in which she transitions from charming sultry seductress to emotionless, detached enigma is astounding. When her character smiles, Johansson artfully maintains this human nothingness in her eyes, allowing her smile to appear as nothing more than a muscle movement, lips stretched over teeth. There is no charm to her facial expressions, merely an unmoving absence of humanity. She has captured the essence of a foreign being perfectly and we, the audience, cannot relate to her at all despite her being (or at least appearing to be) one of our own. Johansson also contributes to the questions about society that lay on the periphery of the narrative; just as the character is devoid of human compassion, she is also devoid of the deceit and prejudice of humans. In a particularly striking – and surprisingly moving - scene, she ‘picks up’ a severely disfigured man, painfully self-conscious of the fact that he is sitting in a vehicle with a beautiful woman (he pinches himself). But she, unfazed by his appearance, simply accepts him as she would anyone else and remarks ‘you’re very quiet’.

There is little to complain about in Under The Skin, a film that provides audiences with what they undoubtedly crave: new and fulfilling experiences. Critics will slam it and say it lacks formula, pace, structure, thoughtful dialogue and artful vision but they of course, are missing the point entirely. The film is in a league of its own, a league that it has created just for itself. It is a polished and well-honed gem of a film and all the praise in existence wouldn’t be sufficient to award it the honours it deserves. Artfully enthralling, innovative and simply brilliant, Under The Skin is in one word, unmissable. If you are a human being, you are obligated to watch such a compelling and thought-provoking thriller.

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Zoe De Pasquale

Staff Film Critic

Having been raised on a steady diet of 'Star Wars' and 'The Lord of the Rings', I learned from a very young age that film was a form of escapism, as well as entertainment. I see film as a true form of art, not only because it evokes emotions within a person, but it allows people to learn something about themselves merely by watching. My love for film is intrinsic to who I am and teaches me new things everyday.

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