The final image immediately made me think of the title of a James Tiptree Jr story, 'Her Smoke Rose Up Forever'. Also thought it might be a referencing the last shot of Ugetsu Monogatari.
― Ward Fowler, Monday, 7 April 2014 10:20 (ten years ago) link
This would be a great double-bill with The Man Who Fell to Earth.
― bizarro gazzara, Monday, 7 April 2014 10:22 (ten years ago) link
this was great I thought, and genuinely fucked with my senses (mainly aural but also empathy) for a few hours after.
read a few reviews now, and a number of them say she becomes "humanised" as a consequence of picking up Adam Pearson. Reacted v strongly against this, tho am not sure if I was right to do so. it appears to feel some sort of empathy for someone themselves isolated by human society (but this only humanising if we assume empathy to be a uniquely human characteristic), there is a crisis, possibly born of solitude, in front of the mirror where it appears to be trying to distinguish the qualities of insect/human in itself, then an unsuccessful period where it escapes from its obscure bondage, and attempts to learn some human behaviour (the emotionless finger tapping is a great example). There is an attempt to give what it has learned men want in return for protection/kindness it has received.
I think what I reacted to is the notion that "she" (most reviews seem to take that literally at face value) becomes better thru the film.
the scene at the end where it contemplates its mask uncomprehendingly ("Is *this* what they all wanted? what all the violence and fear and death was for?") is wonderful.
Triple bill with TMWFTE and ET imo. and maybe Frankenstein's Monster and Hittite Man by The Fall (I liked the suggestion of a peat bog human in the form, and pagan death rite).
― Fizzles, Saturday, 19 April 2014 09:56 (ten years ago) link
Didn't quite know what to make of this. 'It' doesn't look like it could have much expression(?) Was it contemplative? I loved that her eyes were still moving even after the face was disengaged from its body.
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 19 April 2014 10:06 (ten years ago) link
yeah, I did feel I was pushing it in too much of one direction there - part if why the film is so good is the blankness. and yep, the face still moving is a great touch.
― Fizzles, Saturday, 19 April 2014 10:26 (ten years ago) link
read a few reviews now, and a number of them say she becomes "humanised" as a consequence of picking up Adam Pearson.
― kinder, Saturday, 19 April 2014 10:51 (ten years ago) link
I really liked this until the final act, and even then not sure what I think. the "humanization" seems pat (if that's what's going on...or is she just playing at having desires?) but yeah the ending was tarkovsky-esque, or even maybe bresson! and I think you can guess which bresson I'm thinking of.
― ryan, Wednesday, 14 May 2014 20:55 (ten years ago) link
more like besson amirite
― goole, Wednesday, 14 May 2014 20:57 (ten years ago) link
luc? xp DAMMIT
― bizarro gazzara, Wednesday, 14 May 2014 20:58 (ten years ago) link
you guys
― ryan, Wednesday, 14 May 2014 21:00 (ten years ago) link
I think you can guess which bresson I'm thinking of.
Robert?
I saw this last night, and liked it; finely crafted etc. Buttttttt... Somebody on L'boxd how ultimately there is no mystery -- it's utterly straightforward in a sort of "plot-delivery" way. Great cake scene tho.
Because of logistics I went to the Wburg 'Drafthouse'-style theater where ppl are eating throughout, and those places can go die.
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 14 May 2014 21:07 (ten years ago) link
My sense was that she was playing at having desires to see if any of them worked for her and whether she could 'choose' to be human. Clearly cake and sex don't turn out to hold a great deal of appeal. The fact that she turns out not to be a human (I'd wondered if she had somehow taken over a human body) but instead wearing a disguise makes me wonder what, if anything, her race actually do for pleasure.
I do wonder what I'd make of the film if I hadn't been aware of the book.
― bizarro gazzara, Wednesday, 14 May 2014 21:07 (ten years ago) link
lot of wonder there, sorry
― bizarro gazzara, Wednesday, 14 May 2014 21:08 (ten years ago) link
haha I meant au hasard balthazar--don't know why I insisted on being coy there.
strikes me as one of those movies ready-made for psychoanalytically derived criticism. lacanians will love the cake scene (and the "sex" scene).
― ryan, Wednesday, 14 May 2014 21:09 (ten years ago) link
I'm assuming the book is more straightforward?
― ryan, Wednesday, 14 May 2014 21:10 (ten years ago) link
there is no mystery -- it's utterly straightforward in a sort of "plot-delivery" way
True, but there's mystery in that plot is kinda all there is - there's virtually no traditional exposition at all.
― bizarro gazzara, Wednesday, 14 May 2014 21:10 (ten years ago) link
I read this book around the same time I saw Morvern Callar
def thought of this film during the club scene.
also The Babe Who Fell to Earth
ScarJ grabbing the lamp to look at herrrrself got a big laugh.
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 14 May 2014 21:11 (ten years ago) link
ie I don't think this is ambiguous or mysterious enough to demand multiple viewings. At least chewier than "the brilliant Her," though.
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 14 May 2014 21:12 (ten years ago) link
Yes.
― festival culture (Jordan), Wednesday, 14 May 2014 21:22 (ten years ago) link
but way more stupid
― Number None, Wednesday, 14 May 2014 22:16 (ten years ago) link
i guess i should see this? i think i might have had the wrong notion of what it is from the advance publicity.
― espring (amateurist), Wednesday, 14 May 2014 22:32 (ten years ago) link
What was the notion you had?
― bizarro gazzara, Wednesday, 14 May 2014 22:42 (ten years ago) link
Thinking again about this movie in relation to The Man Who Fell to Earth, which I mentioned upthread as a double-feature partner... in TMWFTE Newton's downfall is his appetite for Earthly pleasures but in Under the Skin is Scarlett doomed by her incomprehension of them?
― bizarro gazzara, Wednesday, 14 May 2014 23:12 (ten years ago) link
(er, rape attempt not included in the formulation of 'Earth;y pleasures' there, of course?)
― bizarro gazzara, Wednesday, 14 May 2014 23:14 (ten years ago) link
this was significantly less dopey than Birth
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 15 May 2014 01:45 (ten years ago) link
That's not hard to believe.
― Cronk's Not Cronk (Eric H.), Thursday, 15 May 2014 02:00 (ten years ago) link
trailer for this looks solid imo. Maybe the first film where ScarJo's acting doesn't look bad
― Doritos Loco Parentis (Hurting 2), Thursday, 15 May 2014 02:04 (ten years ago) link
she's never been the worst thing about anything i've seen her in. just hatin' on a star
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 15 May 2014 16:04 (ten years ago) link
the book may have been a little on-the-nose about its themes but i wouldn't say stupid. is the movie 'smart'?
― festival culture (Jordan), Thursday, 15 May 2014 16:32 (ten years ago) link
I just remember having a really negative reaction to the book. Like thinking it was laughable. The film is subtler, not necessarily smarter
― Number None, Thursday, 15 May 2014 16:43 (ten years ago) link
the plot summary on wikipedia makes the basic conceit seem a bit odd. that's an awful lot of trouble to go to for what they are getting out of it. (talking vaguely for spoilers sake, thought i suppose that doesn't really apply in this case.)
― ryan, Thursday, 15 May 2014 16:48 (ten years ago) link
no more so than any sci-fi novel using aliens to make a point about social issues?
― festival culture (Jordan), Thursday, 15 May 2014 16:56 (ten years ago) link
well im just wondering if they want humans to eat why not use agricultural technology of some sort rather than hunting them one by one. get a few and breed them, maybe. perhaps the novel explains this.
― ryan, Thursday, 15 May 2014 17:01 (ten years ago) link
i think their own planet is ecologically fucked and most of the population toils in 'oxygen mines' or something, so getting their humans from earth is the only way to get the equivalent of organic, free-range, grass-fed beef for the upper class.
― festival culture (Jordan), Thursday, 15 May 2014 17:04 (ten years ago) link
ah! ok that makes more sense.
― ryan, Thursday, 15 May 2014 17:05 (ten years ago) link
why they don't just try and take over earth, i don't know (except that it would be a very different book).
― festival culture (Jordan), Thursday, 15 May 2014 17:11 (ten years ago) link
i haven't read much in the way of Big Themes gleaned from this film, except maybe the Turnabout of the Female Predator
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 15 May 2014 17:12 (ten years ago) link
I took it as a parable about the Futility of Desire. under the skin = under the husk of bodily sensations and urges there's only a blank and insensible bare being, a want without means to consummate--it seems to me that he discovery of her "true" state is as much a surprise to her as to us.
― ryan, Thursday, 15 May 2014 17:19 (ten years ago) link
that's why the cake scene brought Lacan's thesis about our true desire being for desire, to prolong our desire, rather than achieve it.
― ryan, Thursday, 15 May 2014 17:20 (ten years ago) link
Getting the bus into glasgow today I could have swore I saw one of the women who was getting makeup applied to her face at the shopping mall. For a while I was wondering where I recognised her from.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Thursday, 15 May 2014 18:04 (ten years ago) link
the cake scene is also abt desire in that sense of 'having one's cake and eating it' - and then feeling sick of indulging, or for succumbing to temptation.
― sʌxihɔːl (Ward Fowler), Thursday, 15 May 2014 19:15 (ten years ago) link
that's why the cake scene brought Lacan's thesis about our true desire being for desire, to prolong our desire, rather than achieve it.― ryan, Thursday, May 15, 2014 12:20 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― ryan, Thursday, May 15, 2014 12:20 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
i thought that goes back to freud
― espring (amateurist), Thursday, 15 May 2014 19:45 (ten years ago) link
probably! the death drive and all that.
― ryan, Thursday, 15 May 2014 19:49 (ten years ago) link
glad I caught this the last night in the theater
― a strange man (mh), Thursday, 15 May 2014 19:59 (ten years ago) link
I loved this, saw it twice, definitely best experienced in theater, felt physically disoriented after leaving and only a handful of films have managed to do that for me - barton fink, inland empire, atanarjuat.
― bizarro gazzara, Wednesday, May 14, 2014 5:10 PM (1 week ago)
yeah, if I went around telling people the new scarjo-as-space-vampire movie was "utterly straightforward", it would be neither a very apt description nor setting anyone's expectations properly.
plus casting a hollywood starlet to lure ppl to see a disturbing art film about a beautiful alien who lures men to their death, a film which ends up being an examination of desire, attraction, gender identity, & general male repulsiveness, I dunno seems like there's plenty of unpacking to be done here.
― a hard dom is good to find (Edward III), Thursday, 22 May 2014 18:25 (ten years ago) link
Those sounds are at the heart of it.
― Alba, Saturday, March 15, 2014 6:52 PM (2 months ago)
saw this last week and this is so so true... the sounds of the car cooling down, the heater warming up - really amazing. loved the shot of the trees waving in the wind.
― KrafTwerk (sleeve), Friday, 23 May 2014 03:36 (ten years ago) link
well im just wondering if they want humans to eat why not use agricultural technology of some sort rather than hunting them one by one. get a few and breed them, maybe. perhaps the novel explains this.― ryan, Thursday, May 15, 2014 10:01 AM (1 week ago)
― ryan, Thursday, May 15, 2014 10:01 AM (1 week ago)
loved this film, by the way. it's my favorite of the year so far, though i haven't seen much. like morbs, i lold at the startled, lamplit self-examination. and i agree w/ EIII abt the themes involved. also think it's about the impossible gulf between the arguably unreal being others desire in perceiving us and our own internal perception of self. neither is knowable to the other (alienated from, etc).
― katsu kittens (contenderizer), Friday, 23 May 2014 04:58 (ten years ago) link
into the idea of spacefaring hunter-gatherers honestly
― difficult listening hour, Friday, 23 May 2014 08:50 (ten years ago) link
psyched for scarjo vs predator
― bizarro gazzara, Friday, 23 May 2014 10:46 (ten years ago) link
Contenderizer, that was from our side discussion of the book, not the movie.
― festival culture (Jordan), Friday, 23 May 2014 20:30 (ten years ago) link