Under the Skin (2014) dir. Jonathan Glazer

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.

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.

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.

read a few reviews now, and a number of them say she becomes "humanised" as a consequence of picking up Adam Pearson.

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.

more like besson amirite

luc? xp DAMMIT

you guys

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.

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.

lot of wonder there, sorry

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).

I'm assuming the book is more straightforward?

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.

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.

ie I don't think this is ambiguous or mysterious enough to demand multiple viewings. At least chewier than "the brilliant Her," though.

I'm assuming the book is more straightforward?

Yes.

but way more stupid

i guess i should see this? i think i might have had the wrong notion of what it is from the advance publicity.

What was the notion you had?

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?

(er, rape attempt not included in the formulation of 'Earth;y pleasures' there, of course?)

this was significantly less dopey than Birth

That's not hard to believe.

trailer for this looks solid imo. Maybe the first film where ScarJo's acting doesn't look bad

she's never been the worst thing about anything i've seen her in. just hatin' on a star

but way more stupid

the book may have been a little on-the-nose about its themes but i wouldn't say stupid. is the movie 'smart'?

I just remember having a really negative reaction to the book. Like thinking it was laughable. The film is subtler, not necessarily smarter

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.)

no more so than any sci-fi novel using aliens to make a point about social issues?

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.

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.

ah! ok that makes more sense.

why they don't just try and take over earth, i don't know (except that it would be a very different book).

i haven't read much in the way of Big Themes gleaned from this film, except maybe the Turnabout of the Female Predator

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

i thought that goes back to freud

probably! the death drive and all that.

glad I caught this the last night in the theater

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.

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, 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.

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.

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)

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).

into the idea of spacefaring hunter-gatherers honestly

psyched for scarjo vs predator

Contenderizer, that was from our side discussion of the book, not the movie.

it's from the book as well, of course.

gotcha, jord. conversation seemed back-and-forth between book and movie.

although i said she was excellent upthread when i saw this (and i want to see it again, but at home next time, i think it might be better suited to a tv than big screen), one of the things i find odd about scarlett j is that she often looks like she thinks what shes doing is a little funny. theres always a kind of smirk. even on the recent avengers poster, she looks like shes laughing at the knowing ridiculousness of it all. im not sure if that means she needs meatier, more intelligent roles, or if shes just a bit ironic and smug. but that look is always there, even in films like hes just not that into you.