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Under The Skin

Started by Butchers Blind, September 03, 2013, 11:38:12 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

BlodwynPig

Quote from: popcorn on March 18, 2014, 11:15:14 PM
In any case I don't think he made it to Tesco.

Poor sod. What was he afflicted with? His body and cock looked mighty fine.

popcorn


Nobody Soup

Quote from: popcorn on March 19, 2014, 10:43:03 AM
Neurofibromatosis.

red rag.
charge.
and the inevitable estoque down my eyeball.

I met a guy with this though and it seriously got to me, it's a horrible thought that people live in that sort of isolation.

Bad Ambassador

I think the film takes on a different complexion if you decide that
Spoiler alert
the Black Amber is actually marmite
[close]
.

This isn't coming out here till late May. Peas and rice.

holyzombiejesus

Really want to see this but, unfortunately, Manchester's Cornerhouse is run by fuckwits who are too busy wanking themselves silly over the new Wes Anderson film and scheduling 4 screenings a day of that shitty Yves Saint Laurent film to make room for it.

BlodwynPig

I never thought I'd see the day that Scarlett Johansson would be seen listening to a radio show presented by Kaye Adams from Loose Women

mjwilson

Quote from: holyzombiejesus on March 20, 2014, 03:02:03 PM
Really want to see this but, unfortunately, Manchester's Cornerhouse is run by fuckwits who are too busy wanking themselves silly over the new Wes Anderson film and scheduling 4 screenings a day of that shitty Yves Saint Laurent film to make room for it.

Cornerhouse have been showing it though.

holyzombiejesus

Quote from: mjwilson on March 22, 2014, 03:56:03 PM
Cornerhouse have been showing it though.

They showed it for a paltry week, like Nymphomaniac. Fuck the Cornerhouse.

Blinder Data

Quote from: BlodwynPig on March 21, 2014, 10:15:10 PM
I never thought I'd see the day that Scarlett Johansson would be seen listening to a radio show presented by Kaye Adams from Loose Women

For me the incongruity hit me when Ms Johansson was in the same room as a Hibs top.

I'm a little surprised at the widespread acclaim on here for this film, to be honest, though I'm not sure why as I know that this is exactly the sort of thing that in general floats the board's boat. The music and visuals were the highlights for me, and it is certainly interesting how it went from a variety of jarring styles: hidden shaky cam that involved real people, abstract sequences, and really, really funny moments (I thought the ranger was hilarious until the
Spoiler alert
rape bit
[close]
). The performances were great and it plucked at my heartstrings more than twice.

Towards the end it lost me. It began to feel aimless and repetitive, with long scenes that dragged. It felt longer than it actually was, and because of that length I wanted (feel free to call me a dunce who doesn't get it) more answers, or at least more to cling on to. Again, perhaps evidence of my philistinism, a more consistent tone might have endeared me to the film's experimental nature. When you've got deliberately humorous dialogue followed by a few minutes of Scarlett looking at her eyes it began to grate.

I thought seeing it in Glasgow would be a good idea, but maybe my view of the film was coloured by the crap crowd that was in the auditorium. If it wasn't the teenagers inanely and inopportunely giggling that rankled, the old couple behind me alternating between 'Ach, I've had enough of this' and 'Oooh, is that Argyle Street?' certainly didn't help.


mjwilson

Quote from: holyzombiejesus on March 23, 2014, 04:09:43 PM
They showed it for a paltry week, like Nymphomaniac. Fuck the Cornerhouse.

Looks like it's back on next week.

holyzombiejesus

Yeah, just saw that. I'm quite tempted to go and see it again, although I'm not sure if a repeat viewing will clarify anything for me.

Sam

I thought this was an excellent, haunting, thoughtful, disturbing and beautiful film. I'll post more thoughts later.

Sam

In some ways it's an incredibly traditional film: there's a linear narrative, restricted setting, clear trajectory; it operates within a multitude of genres and many scenes have precedent in content or aim if not in execution. It is episodic and easily digested in its separate chunks, each of which is marked by a singular aesthetic or style; the film's score also nods to films by Kubrick with the use of heavily Ligeti-inspired clusters, micro polyphony and musique concrete instrumentale effects.

There are a number of distinct dichotomies and tensions running through it:

Human vs alien, man vs woman, consent vs rape.

The film is elemental with great significance placed on water, earth, fire, and ultimately the alchemical transformation in her death scene.

Two images that will haunt me for the rest of my life:

The shot that goes back to the lone tot as night and the sea approach.

The moment when the bloated victim snaps and flutters into skin.

The loveliest viewing dichotomy is the utter technical clarity of the direction and mise-en-scene and the atmosphere of dread and confusion that is attained through these precise means.

It's a beautiful belter of a film.

popcorn

This thing I posted earlier:

In the first "infinite white space" sequence, when we see the tear roll down the cheek, I have a memory of the figure looking at her being a man at first, before becoming a clone of Scarlett, but I'm not confident about that at all. If so, it might imply that Scarlett started off as a male biker, then switched to this new skin, wherever it came from.

Does anyone know if I'm remembering it right?

Shoulders?-Stomach!

#75
One if the most beautiful pieces of cinema I've ever seen, astounding art direction. The long shot of the hills after she/it ditches the van was as beautiful as a landscape painting but also alive! I was drinking it in. The film leaves a markof odd emptiness and loneliness, the film seems to be a pessimistic reflection on emotional investment and communication/intimacy. I thought it was great.

My take on it was that she was killing these men out of either ritual or necessity, but each time seemed to reduce her to listlessness. As she fled into the wilderness it seemed to be to escape the biker? Was she following the bikers instruction. The shots of the bike seemed always loaded with menace.

A more easily deductable element of the film was that the people and places of Earth were shot as if it was alien. The static shots of the wild and of human life were as portrayed as bizarre and fantastic; unfamiliar. It had the effect of looking at things with fresh eyes, seeing that we do live in a strangely constructed world. The coast in particular could have been another planet, she inspected it with awe and yet also utter coldness, as if her entire surroundings were rejecting her.

Also Im usually a contrary s.o.b but even I can't deny Johansson is jaw dropping.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

It also is very funny in places! The second luring had the theatre chuckling, and the encounter with the park ranger is, before his return, one of the oddest 'conversations', there was nothing to do except laugh.

It seemed like she became gradually more sad and towards the end as she is attacked she displays what we would recognise as human emotions. Was this due to human contact?- I found it interesting how she tries to eat food and attempt human sex but then flees altogether, she seemed to be overwhelmed/trapped. And I found that incredibly sad, and felt sorry for her even though she is a murdering alien.

So many things to discuss. Please write more about how you felt.


holyzombiejesus

The only negative thing that I could say about this was that the central 'gimmick' of it, (i.e. SJ driving round Glasgow pulling Neds) did sometimes stop me being fully immersed in the film. Every now and then I'd come out of it and think Fuckin'ell, that's Scarlett Johansen!

popcorn

I sort of liked that though. The whole time you're really conscious of how out of her element she is - Scarlett Johanson doesn't fit at all in the setting. That's part of the alien feel.

Johnny Textface

My take was that all
Spoiler alert
the alien lasses eventually start disobeying the bikers for one reason or another, empathy or 'getting blood on their hands'. This had happened to the previous Scarlett at the top of the film (and that was maybe why she shed a tear?)  Another seductress was ordered and it happened again.
[close]
] Anyway, great film - and the two scenes mentioned above were the most harrowing and incredible I've seen in the cinema for a long time.  Soundtrack is worth a special mention as was absolutely spot on.
Spoiler alert
I also don't think she had the requisite equipment necessary for a shagging session, if it was an orgasm it was unlike any that I've had a hand in.
[close]

non capisco

Quote from: Shoulders?-Stomach! on April 04, 2014, 07:06:17 AM
It also is very funny in places! The second luring had the theatre chuckling,

The one with the nightclub guy still dancing about naked with a lob on before following her in? Yeah, that made me smirk, although anything was a light respite after
Spoiler alert
the baby
[close]
.

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/apr/13/scarlett-johansson-screen-stigma-disfigurement
Interview here with the facially disfigured guy. I'd love to hear some of the 'eye-wateringly unprintable' jokes he and Scarlett were trading on set.

Sexton Brackets Drugbust

My cousin's a film producer and he worked on The Girl With The Pearl Earring, which Johansson was in. She's got a smashing sense of humour by all accounts. It was weird seeing photos of their table at the Oscar's ceremony, with his elderly parents sitting alongside Scarlett Johansson - who was then going through a phase where everyone in the media was comparing her to Marilyn Monroe and she was playing up to the cameras as such.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Just looking back at the sheer amount of time the camera is fixed on the character driving a van around expressionlessly.

It's such an impermeable exterior, you are made to feel a hostage to events, the emotions and motivations being unqualified and alien. This is then juxtaposed as it moves to the countryside, also inhuman, stark, uncaring, where the character starts to seek some sort of connection and emotional understanding with the humans and her surroundings, only to find it incompatible with her being. She seems to completely break down when her attempts to connect all fail.

The baby on the beach and the horrible attack near the end are breathtakingly bleak, yet almost milestones in the evolution of her character. She feels nothing at all in the first instance at the scene she surveys, yet at the end she displays elements of an ego, an esteem, a human sense of dignity and displays human distress.

What an intriguing film this is.

Glebe

I was kicking myself that it seemed to have finished it's theatrical run, then to my joy I discovered that it had popped back up in the Lighthouse cinema here in Dublin and I went to see it this afternoon (my current cinema-binge early mid-life crisis breakdown continues...), so here's my amateur critique.

I have to say I was truly bowled over by it. Probably already mentioned, but apparently its really divided critics and was actually booed when it premiered at the Venice Film Festival. I saw the Film 2014 review that has been mentioned, they generally agreed it was something special. I really do feel its a bit of a modern classic and one of the most unsettling, creepy films I've ever seen, definite Nicholas Roeg/Kubrick vibe going on. Even the soundtrack is terrifying. I kind of saw it as a study of humanity (and lack off), Scarlett Johansson's character
Spoiler alert
starts off completely detached and ends up becoming more human and vulnerable. I love the bit where she starts tapping her fingers to their music.
[close]

The combination of 'real', documentary vibe and scary science fiction scenes works really well, definitely gives it a lot of impact. The creepy alien stuff is weird enough even without the scenes of ordinary Glasgow life. It's a real feat that a modern film can be so disturbing while barely spilling a drop of blood. The one bit that actually really upset me and I felt uncomfortable with was the aforementioned
Spoiler alert
baby left on the beach,
[close]
, I've seen some really disturbing films but that was hard to take, talk about an emotional wallop.

Johansson is such a natural beauty, just saw her in Captain America 2 all done up but I actually found her way more attractive in this. Great natural performance too. Apparently she auditioned for the role of Lisbeth Salander in the US The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo but David Fincher decided she was too good looking for the role. She kind of gets to play a similar character here, in a way.

Oh yeah, excellent observation in your other thread Talulah!

Sam

It's a film which is best described as 'distressing'. The last time I felt such gnawing dread was in the film version of The Road.

I must say I found the erection scenes immensely upsetting. Whether intentional or not it creates some sort of dread or phobia of the phallus. The absolutely gutted out eroticism of these scenes, the almost sound-stage/installation elements combining with pulsating avant-garde music that means the next time you to enter your missus, even weeks later, you start to suspect of some crescendo of blackness, a mortuary horror in liquidation and the hypnotic descent into the nightmare of a closed world - and you howl.

I keep coming back to this thread and I'm still thinking about the film every day, weeks later. It must be one of the best films I've ever seen.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Me too, it stays with you. Funnily enough, a lot of Kubrick and Roeg films- and Cronenburg- he deserve to be included create unforgettable moments that strike at the very core of existing. I absently find myself mulling over events, even trying to unspin them in my head.

Then you have the extraordinary cinematography which alone makes it worth viewing. Two shots- that of the huge trees in the forest swaying, and the snow/sleet settling silently from above, they particularly stay Iin my mind's eye.

The use of static shots is horribly abandoned in mainstream cinema so watching a film nearly entirely composed of them packs a punch.

non capisco

I heard an interesting interview with Glaser the other day on the Filmspotting podcast where he spoke of several scenes shot he felt were beautiful but couldn't be used because the people filmed declined to give permission for their footage to be used. One of them was the alien on a park bench overhearing a real life couple breaking up, which they obviously didn't even try and solicit permission for. He made the process sound a bit like an art project version of 'Beadle's About'. 

I'm a bit obsessed with Under The Skin. Convinced it's one of the best films I've ever seen now. I'm chasing it round the second-run cinemas in London before it drops out of sight. I'm worried I'm going to go a bit funny when the blu-ray comes out. That
Spoiler alert
baby
[close]
never gets any easier to watch, by the way.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Still transfixed. The power of those beautiful static shots.

The calm of the snow falling and the smoke rising.


non capisco

Quote from: Shoulders?-Stomach! on May 06, 2014, 10:47:40 PM
Still transfixed. The power of those beautiful static shots.

The calm of the snow falling and the smoke rising.

And the opening. The human female disguise being 'formed' as it were, testing out vowel sounds. Completely hypnotic and chilling.