I guess the David Lynch comparison is somewhat understandable. Under The Skin features a constant droning score, has lots of dialogue-less moments between the actors and it's a very surreal film where lots of random stuff happens and you don't know if you should laugh or be scared. These are all classic traits of David Lynch but at the same time that comparison feels lazy. These days any movie that's even slightly weird or "different" draws an immediate comparison to stuff like Lost Highway or Mulholland Drive. David Lynch, who is one of my all-time favorite filmmakers, didn't invent surreal, experimental or weird cinema. But film critics who write for The Huffington Post, Indie Wire and the million other nameless movie blogs would have you believe otherwise. Go a lil' deeper or look for a less obvious influence. If anything, Under The Skin looks like Jonathan Glazer tapped in to his inner-Chris Cunningham (for those that don’t know, both Glazer & Cunningham were prominent music video directors working around the same time). I always felt Glazer & Cunningham had the same spiritual connection as Spike Jonze & Michel Gondry. Each pair has worked with the same/similar music artists, and their visual styles are very similar. In fact, I used to get Jonathan Glazer & Chris Cunningham mixed up with one another.
There's a scene in Under The Skin where a nameless man sinks in to some kind of a liquid abyss and has his insides sucked out of his of body until he's just a formless blob of skin floating along, and I was immediately reminded of Chris Cunningham's Only You music video for Portishead...
There's another scene in Under The Skin where Scarlett Johansson picks up a man off the side of the road with a deformed face and I suddenly felt like I was watching an Aphex Twin video directed by Chris Cunningham. Both Glazer & Cunningham shoot deformities in the same fashion – darkly lit with just enough lighting to catch little glimpses of images that are supposed to scare us...
I honestly don't get the Stanley Kubrick comparison tho. It’s evident from Glazer’s past music video work that Kubrick was an influence on him, but I just don’t see it with Under The Skin. In fact, I don't understand why any surreal film or filmmaker is always compared to Kubrick. He made ONE partially trippy film in the 60's. I know 2001: A Space Odyssey is a heavily influential film (probably top 10) but I wish critics had more to reference than that and Mulholland Drive. Have prominent film critics stopped watching films regularly? Or are they just not aware of the likes of Maya Deren, Stan Brahkage or selected works of Luis Bunuel, Andrei Tarkovsky or even Matthew Barney? Hell, someone make a Man Who Fell To Earth reference. Besides the fact that both films have a similar plot, there's some serious visual similarities as well...
Maybe the average people who read movie reviews don't know the aforementioned films & filmmakers and need a more recognizable name like Kubrick as a reference. But still - who hasn’t Stanley Kubrick influenced on some level? It's becoming redundant to mention Kubrick's influence on anyone in modern cinema...
There's a scene in Under The Skin where a nameless man sinks in to some kind of a liquid abyss and has his insides sucked out of his of body until he's just a formless blob of skin floating along, and I was immediately reminded of Chris Cunningham's Only You music video for Portishead...
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| Only You (Cunningham) / Under The Skin (Glazer) |
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| Only You / Under The Skin |
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| Rubber Johnny (Cunningham) / Under The Skin |
I honestly don't get the Stanley Kubrick comparison tho. It’s evident from Glazer’s past music video work that Kubrick was an influence on him, but I just don’t see it with Under The Skin. In fact, I don't understand why any surreal film or filmmaker is always compared to Kubrick. He made ONE partially trippy film in the 60's. I know 2001: A Space Odyssey is a heavily influential film (probably top 10) but I wish critics had more to reference than that and Mulholland Drive. Have prominent film critics stopped watching films regularly? Or are they just not aware of the likes of Maya Deren, Stan Brahkage or selected works of Luis Bunuel, Andrei Tarkovsky or even Matthew Barney? Hell, someone make a Man Who Fell To Earth reference. Besides the fact that both films have a similar plot, there's some serious visual similarities as well...
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| The Man Who Fell To Earth (Roeg) / Under The Skin |
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| The Man Who Fell To Earth / Under The Skin |
Maybe the average people who read movie reviews don't know the aforementioned films & filmmakers and need a more recognizable name like Kubrick as a reference. But still - who hasn’t Stanley Kubrick influenced on some level? It's becoming redundant to mention Kubrick's influence on anyone in modern cinema...
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| this scene, used in Jonathan Glazer's music video for Massive Attack's Karmacoma, is so cliché but I had to throw it in... |
I’m also shocked at how hardly anyone has made any kind of a link between Under The Skin and Leos Carax’s Holy Motors. Both films are darkly comical surreal stories about a nameless protagonist driving around getting in to unexplained adventures. I’m not saying the connection is as strong as Blue Velvet & Something Wild or Vertigo & Lost Highway, but I definitely see some strong similarities between the two…
Jonathan Glazer definitely went back to his music video roots with his latest feature and I'm not sure how I feel about that. On one hand - Under The Skin is wonderful to look at. But after 45 minutes it does start to feel like a really long music video or one of those “artsy” playstation ads you see on European television. Glazer seemed to be more concerned with style instead of telling a story. Under The Skin comes off like the feature film debut of a young former music video director but the problem is that this is actually the third feature film from an older/experienced former music video director so I don’t know if I can give this film a pass on certain things. Putting style over everything else, which is certainly the case with Under The Skin, is the kind of thing I don't personally go for (outside of my strange love for Nicholas Winding Refn) but I can let that go as long as the filmmaker is either young and/or new to feature filmmaking and their stylish visuals are exceptional. Jonathan Glazer had his time to purge and jerk-off to his own visuals with Sexy Beast & Birth (his first two features). Now that we're on movie #3, I'd like to see a stronger plot and/or a memorable performance (not to take anything away from Ben Kingsley's performance in Sexy Beast).
Under The Skin has the makings of a cult classic (or at least a cult film with a solid cult following) but the problem is fans & (most) critics want to make it something bigger. Can’t we just call this a cult film and leave it at that? Putting aside the half-ass theory abouy this film being a comment on the male gender, Under The Skin isn’t that deep (no pun in intended) and I think we all know if the star was a random no-name actress or a model it wouldn’t get half the attention it’s getting, and a lot of you would write it off as just another strange artsy flick. Although props to Jonathan Glazer for not packing this film with a ton of recognizable faces. He could have easily made each nameless male character Johansson comes in contact with a known actor, but thankfully he didn’t as it would been distracting and would have probably taken us out of the (mostly empty) story. Between American Hustle & Grand Budapest Hotel, I just can’t take the ensemble casts anymore. It’s overkill. And Scarlett Johansson may not have given a phenomenal performance but I honestly can't see anyone else playing the part she did.
Jonathan Glazer definitely went back to his music video roots with his latest feature and I'm not sure how I feel about that. On one hand - Under The Skin is wonderful to look at. But after 45 minutes it does start to feel like a really long music video or one of those “artsy” playstation ads you see on European television. Glazer seemed to be more concerned with style instead of telling a story. Under The Skin comes off like the feature film debut of a young former music video director but the problem is that this is actually the third feature film from an older/experienced former music video director so I don’t know if I can give this film a pass on certain things. Putting style over everything else, which is certainly the case with Under The Skin, is the kind of thing I don't personally go for (outside of my strange love for Nicholas Winding Refn) but I can let that go as long as the filmmaker is either young and/or new to feature filmmaking and their stylish visuals are exceptional. Jonathan Glazer had his time to purge and jerk-off to his own visuals with Sexy Beast & Birth (his first two features). Now that we're on movie #3, I'd like to see a stronger plot and/or a memorable performance (not to take anything away from Ben Kingsley's performance in Sexy Beast).
The plot for Under The Skin is a pretty typical sci-fi scenario - an alien (Scarlett Johansson) disguised as a nameless beautiful woman drives around Scotland and lures men back to a secret lair with false promises of sex, but instead they're hypnotized, captured and have their bodies harvested for some unexplained reason (presumably because their bodies provide some kind of energy for the alien race that Johansson's character represents). In the midst of doing her job, she has a sudden change of heart and goes rogue. After that, the film doesn’t fall completely apart, but I definitely remember checking the time more than once or squinting at the movie screen with a facial expression like; “…huh?”
It should be noted that the basic plot to Under The Skin is similar to The Man Who Fell To Earth. In Nicholas Roeg's film, David Bowie plays an alien who disguises himself as a human in an effort to get water back to his dying planet (there's also a crucial scene in both films where their true alien-self is revealed in a similar fashion).
I had to look up the plot for Under The Skin on Amazon (its based on a science fiction novel) and upon finding out what the story was really about, I was even more disappointed with the film adaptation. Glazer doesn't really delve in to the story that much. Instead he focuses more on Johansson's beauty and setting up cool isolated shots. I know not all films need to have a straightforward plot (or a plot at all) but there was an emptiness to Under The Skin that made me want more information. And the film was actually based on a story that had a plot! If you’re going to adapt a book, then adapt the book. Don’t just cherry pick what you want until it becomes a shell of what it once was. Just make your own story and call it something else if you’re going to do that.
Under The Skin also feels like a half executed comment on the male gender and how easily we fall prey to superficiality and/or sex. Through the course of the film, Johansson’s nameless alien character crosses paths with so many different male prototypes – The jocky/bro-ish sports fan, the sleazy night club guy that I imagine every woman dreads running in to, the insecure loner, the helpful sincere gentleman, and the aggressor/rapist. Almost every man Johansson comes in contact with in the film approaches her in a somewhat similar fashion: aggressive, sleazy, alpha male-ish or they try too hard to be cool. The story suddenly shifts when Johansson picks up the man with facial deformities. He’s quiet, shy, clearly depressed and doesn’t hit on her. In fact, he barely looks at her (he later reveals he’s never even been with a woman before). Because this is new for out protagonist, she’s thrown off and can’t comprehend that a man wouldn’t hit on her or instantly take to her aggressive flirting like all the others before him. This character brings her to the realization that not all men are the same and some have a soul. Her reevaluation of the male gender is ruined later on with the final man she comes in contact with...
Under The Skin also feels like a half executed comment on the male gender and how easily we fall prey to superficiality and/or sex. Through the course of the film, Johansson’s nameless alien character crosses paths with so many different male prototypes – The jocky/bro-ish sports fan, the sleazy night club guy that I imagine every woman dreads running in to, the insecure loner, the helpful sincere gentleman, and the aggressor/rapist. Almost every man Johansson comes in contact with in the film approaches her in a somewhat similar fashion: aggressive, sleazy, alpha male-ish or they try too hard to be cool. The story suddenly shifts when Johansson picks up the man with facial deformities. He’s quiet, shy, clearly depressed and doesn’t hit on her. In fact, he barely looks at her (he later reveals he’s never even been with a woman before). Because this is new for out protagonist, she’s thrown off and can’t comprehend that a man wouldn’t hit on her or instantly take to her aggressive flirting like all the others before him. This character brings her to the realization that not all men are the same and some have a soul. Her reevaluation of the male gender is ruined later on with the final man she comes in contact with...
Under The Skin has the makings of a cult classic (or at least a cult film with a solid cult following) but the problem is fans & (most) critics want to make it something bigger. Can’t we just call this a cult film and leave it at that? Putting aside the half-ass theory abouy this film being a comment on the male gender, Under The Skin isn’t that deep (no pun in intended) and I think we all know if the star was a random no-name actress or a model it wouldn’t get half the attention it’s getting, and a lot of you would write it off as just another strange artsy flick. Although props to Jonathan Glazer for not packing this film with a ton of recognizable faces. He could have easily made each nameless male character Johansson comes in contact with a known actor, but thankfully he didn’t as it would been distracting and would have probably taken us out of the (mostly empty) story. Between American Hustle & Grand Budapest Hotel, I just can’t take the ensemble casts anymore. It’s overkill. And Scarlett Johansson may not have given a phenomenal performance but I honestly can't see anyone else playing the part she did.
I feel like I'm in the minority with my lukewarm reception. I'd love to hear what you all thought about this. Perhaps there's something I missed...
