Man, this is pretty incredible. I don’t think I can really give this justice in a review, but I’ll do my best. The way Under the Skin uses the camera, and it’s protagonist, to detach the audience and push us to feel isolated, alien ourselves, from our fellow human, is hauntingly done. The crawling realization, essentially a dawning consciousness, that human beings are not simply something to trick and consume, but also appreciate, fear, perhaps even love, is courageously the heart of this film. Scarlett Johansson is essentially an alien siren leading men to their deaths, trapped by their lust. Despite her horrendous acts, the film suggests that humans are not so different in our innermost thoughts and desires. As the social spirit develops in our protagonist, so too does inhibition, and self reflection. An impossible paradox for a siren that leaves her vulnerable, predator becoming prey. I wonder, if the man on the motorcycle had found her, would he have done the same? Or saved, sheltered, one of his own?  

Something I have been considering more lately is becoming vegetarian, or even vegan. I worked at a Greek restaurant in high school, and one of the dishes I loved was baby octopus. That was around 8 years ago,  and since then my whole world has changed twice over. I no longer want baby octopus. They are extremely intelligent, emotional animals, not so terribly different than human beings. When I watch Under the Skin, I think about those baby octopuses again, and I wonder if Jonathan Glazer has similar thoughts, or this is merely my interpretation. For while Under the Skin certainty has a more obvious point about the arbitrary morality that audiences pervert and impose on film, what they excuse, who they root for, what they determine fulfilling or flat; I also found Glazer to be questioning our role as consumers of any kind, whether that be film or flesh. 

Love these visuals, the descending ash, the blinking face held in her own hands, a technical facade of humanity that shows all the telltale signs of our eternal internal struggle. What are we, and for what purpose do we exist? What are we really, beneath our pretenses and predispositions? Predator, prey, meat, skin, ash, the earth beneath our feet.

Very Bergman and Kubrick inspired.