Review: Under the Skin

When we first meet Scarlett Johansson in Under the Skin, she is staring at herself. Or rather the self that will soon cover its nakedness with the clothes being taken off her soon to be lifeless body. Who is this first Scarlett, whose body was recovered from the roadside by a mysterious motorcyclist? We never find out, but this second Scarlett soon reveals herself to be an extraterrestrial predator.

This exotic insect, raven-haired and red-lipped, is constantly gazing about her Scottish surroundings as she drives around, scanning the ordinary Glaswegian faces for her next prey. The men she picks up and lures back to her flat find themselves in a dark and cavernous space, but they take no note. They simply follow this seductress, shedding their clothes as she sheds hers, sinking deeper and deeper into some strange liquid until it finally overtakes them.

Director Jonathan Glazer, who rose to prominence directing commercials and music videos before establishing himself as a feature film director with Sexy Beast and Birth, trafficks in arresting images, here depicting the men's aftermaths with one of the most eerily entrancing sequences put to film. Suspended in the amniotic-like fluid, their bodies are soon liquified, their insides suddenly taken and only their shedded skin is left, floating like a disposed condom. It's a sight that would not be out of place in any horror film.

Indeed there are sequences here that both chill and repulse: Johansson observing a man drowning; Johansson dragging a body as an abandoned infant wails on; an encounter with a facially deformed man that leaves her germinating with humanity. Under the Skin is all about its mood and its images - this is a film that is willfully inscrutable and, for some viewers, promises more than it fulfills.

Glazer's protagonists - the determined sociopath Don Logan in Sexy Beast, the widow in winter of Birth, and the enigmatic alien of Under the Skin - disparate as they are, share a sense of the otherwordly, of being detached from their realities. There's an austerity in Glazer's gaze but also a fascination in what lies beneath their facades. Working off of Michael Faber's novel, Glazer not only concocts a meditation on what it means to be human but also the constantly shifting balance of power between men and women and man and nature.

Johansson is alluring and it is a testament to her talent that her character's oddity is both ordinary and opaque. She maintains herself as a blank slate, something to be projected upon, which is not the easiest of tasks. By the end, her predator falls prey to her own womanhood and all its accompanying dangers and frailties.

Under the Skin

Directed by: Jonathan Glazer

Written by: Walter Campbell, Jonathan Glazer; adapted from Michael Faber's novel

Starring: Scarlett Johansson