Under the Skin (2014) dir. Jonathan Glazer

Also, I think this is one of the few examples where I'd prefer to see the film before reading the book. The film is an extreme stripped down version of the idea of the book, it truly is "based on the book" in the sense that the book has a whole other dimension to the plot.

I also thought there was only one motorcyclist btw!

I kind of hated the ending of the book when I read it although I loved it up to that point. the movie is much more haunting and ambiguous and weird.

TBH, the central themes of the book are at right angles to those of the film, and the book is so frequently internal dialogue its nigh unfilmable. They're two distinct entities that share little besides an alien picking up unattached hitchhikers on Scottish A roads.

^ internal monologue

well there's 2 hours i won't get back.

I think it was too short. Not that I was crazy about it or anything but I wanted more stages.

http://nomoredeaddogs.tumblr.com/post/84245309417/under-the-skin-2014-i-forgot-there-was-a-dog

:(

never really thought this merited the hype when i saw it. but am going to watch on dvd this week - i think i already wrote about it upthread when it was released but it does seem like a warpfilms, lo budget brit sci fi kind of film, one that would work better at home than in the cinema. just remember finding it quite choppy in terms of its flow, and a bit jarringly edited, more a sequence of setpieces than a narrative, as if they were a bit too razor happy in the editing room. glazer's nicole kidman film was better.

http://reverseshot.org/features/1988/two_cents_2014

Under the Skin is perfect, in its way: it nails that brand of cool distance familiar from certain strands of art-world installation work, Björk music videos, Lexus commercials, and…almost any other arty indie sci-fi film. Indeed, its icy perfection becomes all terribly expected after a point, and going back over the film, looking at its shooting strategies, it feels less a work of rigor than one of remove. Even so, its fans generally came off like a pack of forty-niners in their rush to be the first to label it “Kubrickian.” It’s clear that Jonathan Glazer, who last gave us the risible Birth, has seen A Clockwork Orange (dig that near-future retro-present shtick!), The Shining (marvel at those geometrically precise compositions and sickening string glissandos!), and, of course, 2001: A Space Odyssey (visual abstractions and cosmic ambiguity!). But one wonders if he’s really taken in Barry Lyndon (for wryly undercutting its lush romanticism), Full Metal Jacket (for conveying righteous anger in the face of senseless, real-life horror), Eyes Wide Shut (for its clear-eyed yet oddly romantic examination of the marital institution), or hell, even Dr. Strangelove (for its bawdy hilarity). The insurmountable gap between Glazer and Kubrick seems plain: both have formidable command over the stuff cinema is made of, but Kubrick was able to consistently marshal that talent into expressive works that speak beyond themselves, to the world at large. Under the Skin is airless, worked over within an inch of its life, and might well look better in a gallery than a movie theater. What exactly are we to take away from it? That humanity is special and rare and to be cherished? That alienation is the modern condition and the lot of everyone, even space vixens? One wonders, if you removed the aesthetic bells and whistles, what’s left under Under the Skin. —Jeff Reichert

Nah

What makes a film feminist? You can start by having a woman or group of women make the movie. You don’t have to address the sex lives of women, but if you do, they don’t have to be slut-shamed. You can pass the Bechdel Test (though Under the Skin doesn’t) and portray the lives of women as they are actually experienced. A sci-fi or fantasy film that suspends or hyperbolizes certain aspects of reality can play around even more. In Under the Skin, we get an alien wearing a woman-suit, but she (it?) is not necessarily concerned with being a “woman” at all. Though she understands the seductive powers of feminine wiles, it’s all a ruse, a means to a different, gooier end than her male victims imagine. This premise, which the first half of the film sets up, brims with feminist potential, as many critics have noted. But when this unfeeling alien encounters a man with a face disfigured by neurofibromatosis, instead of ingesting him like anyone else, she spares (i.e. friend-zones) him. Moreover his “specialness” triggers her curiosity about, and sympathy for, being human. Of course the exceptional treatment of disabled characters is nothing new in film and television, but this is more than a regrettably clunky episode. Because feminism is not about “women” so much as it is about toppling patriarchy, a system that says that some bodies matter more than others, whatever feminist statement this film is trying to make is almost entirely undone by this hackneyed trope. Disability is not incidental or adjacent to feminism, but wholly shares in its anti-patriarchal critique. Under the Skin punts on this very issue. Unlike, say, the dwarf-tossing incident in The Wolf of Wall Street, where the depraved treatment of the disabled illustrates Jordan Belfort’s inhuman callousness, Under the Skin comes off as sanctimonious and inconsistent (and still sexist). Though it shows how bad it is to be a woman in this world—constantly subjected to the predatory behavior of men, threatened with rape, etc.—it wrongly exempts the disfigured man from this misery. Instead of sharing in the lot of the disadvantaged, or even the privilege of men, it treats him, like so many movies, as someone outside the system, no more than a magical talisman. —Genevieve Yue

so basically men with sexual desire get killed. men without apparent desire get the girl (even if they dont get to take them to bed). so kind of like, women dont want to have sex, they just want a friend. did stephen fry write this movie?

surprised not to see the word "problematic" in that one

The first review proceeds from an irrelevant strawman to a useless catalog of things the film isn't. The second, similarly, faults Glazer's film for approaches it fails to take, critiques it doesn't make. Both refuse to work up from what the film actually is to whatever it might mean. Under the Skin concerns an attempt to construct and comprehend identity in response to the perceptions and behavior of others (that behavior, in turn, a reflection of external appearances). It's about reverse-engineering the self. In this context, the alien's response to the disfigured man makes perfect sense. The creature is fascinated by the implications of appearance and difference, seemingly troubled by the unbridgeable gap between superficial and interior reality.

Also, I'm getting sick of asides suggesting that the film presents the protagonist as "constantly subjected to the predatory behavior of men". This is simply not true. The truck driver who appears at the end is really the only male character who fits this description.

^^^

yeah those are both weird takes.

What exactly are we to take away from it? That humanity is special and rare and to be cherished? That alienation is the modern condition and the lot of everyone, even space vixens?

my own feeling is that the movie is about the horror of recognizing the opposite. her inability to be a "person" uncannily reflects back at us.

this movie is bad because it doesn't contain Stanley Kubrick's entire filmography

yeah that was fucking stupid

true of most movies tbh

i don't get the kubrick thing at all. what was kubricky about it?

true of most movies tbh

― ryan, Thursday, January 22, 2015 5:50 PM (22 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

kubrick's for a start

I didn't think Of Kubrick once watching this myself

maybe there's arguably some thematic things in common but it doesn't look or feel like a kubrick movie at all. and while i dont think it's better than really any of kubrick's movies that's hardly a knock against it.

only way to fix it's lack of Kubrick is to get it remade by spielberg, with a 45-minute coda about her quest to become a real girl

now AI would definitely be an interesting comparison!

i dont exactly get the kubrick thing myself - thats just critics needing to slam something canon-y/cinephile-ish in there, or simply unable to watch a new film without seeing it as referring to something in the past. there are better things to slam this movie about, like its jarring editing for instance. or how there arent more club scenes. or the fact that it lacks anything resembling humour. it is a bit too aware of and in love with its entire arty-sci-fi-ness. the reviewer did get that part right, though i think thats why it seems to be rated so highly, simply for what it doesnt do (ie its not interstellar, yay!) than what it does, which iirc is basically deconstructionist, minimalist, and ambivalence, all great concepts, but for me, it just made it seem kind of disconnected. plus, i had watched the man who fell to earth already and didnt really need a low budget 21st century remake of it. am thinking i should just file it under critic-bait/indie british films we are meant to SUPPORT/films you are meant to like as the lead star who is usually in big hollywood productions is slumming it.

the man who fell to earth is a mess and a slog, especially compared to the economy and intensity of under the skin

theres economy.... and then there's borderline brutal jumps in flow. then again maybe that could be a virtue. bold and brutal editing - a suitably blunt style of editing for the times. like jumping from one internet browser tab to the next. or going through a youtube playlist. yes, actually, fuck flow and smooth transitions and continuity and all the rest of it - more exciting to just shuttle around (im not being facetious here).

editing style is well suited to the material imo, and it allows for mystery to seep in through the gaps

im going to watch it again with this new aesthetic appreciation i have developed and report back after the weekend. also going to have a few drinks just in case i get pissed off at it again. or i might just put the scenes that look like a car advert on repeat.

am now wondering what harmony korine (also someone with a good grasp of nu-jar editing mannerisms) might have done with the script

"humorless" is a fair charge i guess, but i think any overtly funny moments would've broken the spell and seemed out of place.

i like man who fell to earth ok but under the skin does a way better job of depicting what an actual non-human perspective might be like imo.

some of the jump cuts in this movie actually made me literally jump. i don't know if any movie's ever done that to me before.

it's a film about the experience of alienation and dislocation, the struggle to make sense of environment and experience. abstraction, fragmentation and coldness work as elements of the narrative, not mere style for style's sake.

what he said

id say enter the void had a trippier take on non human perspectives, despite still being from the POV of an actual human. glazer should have done that peep show/lady in the water-POV type thing maybe, so we never even see the alien. that might have been interesting and more challenging (after all, a lot of people would probably never have checked this out if it wasnt for scarjo/scarjo being naked). do have an allergic reaction to po-faced analysis of this movie however which i am trying to work through.

this isn't available on Blu-Ray at the video store, and it seems like a Blu-Ray (as opposed to DVD) kind of movie. how should I see this?

this reminded me of Morvern Callar more than anything else (which is a film I love)

It reminded me of Morvern Callar too!

morvern callar has one fantastic shot (of a spaced-out drug-addled partygoer) that sticks really strongly in my mind

it's kind of a grainy film, I think dvd would be alright (several xposts)

"humorless" is a fair charge i guess, but i think any overtly funny moments would've broken the spell and seemed out of place.

Should have been a bloopers reel over the end credits with ScarJo's funniest Glasgow pickup moments.

only way to fix it's lack of Kubrick is to get it remade by spielberg, with a 45-minute coda about her quest to become a real girl

this ignorant shit never gets old, does it

uh SJ using the lamp is very funny

it's a fucking joke, morbs. relax.

waiting for the pron remake, personally.

Alba otm

She picked up a total ned, that is comedy.

But I think this film would have done fine without humour. Don't see why it would need it.

I don't think anyone is actually advocating for the injection of humor into the film, Robert

i said it seemed like a blu-ray film b/c it's so DARK (literally--lots of black) and blacks come across better in HD