Jonathan Glazer’s “Under the Skin”
Under the Skin (2013)
A wholly cinematic experience of the highest calibre fuses visuals, narrative and performance into a cohesive, compelling and sublime piece of visual storytelling
Once in a blue moon a film comes along that’s a sublime and transcendental experience. Having the fortune to finally see Glazer’s Under the Skin on the big screen, a film to which I’ve waited to see in a cinema, I’m glad that I held back. Based on the epynonymous novel by Michel Faber, it tells the story of an alien (Scarlett Johansson) arriving on earth (Scotland) to carry on mysterious and sinister work from her predecessor.
Told almost entirely visually, it is perhaps the best edited film I’ve seen in a long while thanks to the work of Glazer and Paul Watts. Each scene triggers the next and if you give yourself over to the flow, there is a lot of pay off. I’ve mentioned Genndy Tarkovsky’s visual storytelling and that confident storytelling is present here though there are also hints of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and Nicolas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth as well as a grounded, documentary style for some scenes which ground the film in gritty reality.
Scarlett Johansson is almost unrecognisable in what is the best performance I’ve seen from her. From the Jagger-like black hair to her accent, she inhabits the role which adds a meta level to the part with the Hollywood actress in Glasgow mirroring the alien visiting earth. The rest of the cast are almost entirely made up of amateur actors which contributes to the natural, almost documentary feel.
Mica Levi’s soundtrack is exceptional and in the film’s opening, the audiovisual experience is like passing through a gate into the world Glazer has created like the zoom into the ear in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet or passing into the secret cinema in Carax’s Holy Motors. Perhaps this opening scene is a key part of the reason I question whether watching this outside a cinema would work. Levi’s music is so immersive and in an opening in which we don’t know what we’re looking at as shapes, light and shadow are presented in such a way that we start so far from the shore of the familiar that we cling onto the soundtrack for guidance.
I want to avoid going into more detail and advise that you avoid watching trailers or reading more on the film and if possible, see this on a big screen. If not, watch on the biggest screen possible in a dark room with headphone and give yourself over to a wholly cinematic experience of the highest calibre.
