Found in: Lost in Space

Under the Skin

classified 15

Lost in Space

Film

Please note: This was screened in May 2019

Director
Jonathan Glazer
Cast
Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy McWilliams, Lynsey Taylor Mackay
Details
108 mins, 2013, Switzerland | UK | USA
Primary language
English

The alien walks among us in Jonathan Glazer’s radical blurring of fantasy and reality, surrealism and realism, starring Scarlett Johansson as a mysterious being luring men to their fatal end, in this brilliant sci-fi that’s got plenty to say about gender roles, sexism and the power of lust.

A voracious alien seductress scours Scotland's remote highways, backroads and city streets in a non-descript white van, searching for men to hunt and kill. This dark cycle is interrupted, however, when she meets a disfigured man, and unexpectedly starts to feel a new thing - compassion. Is this what it means to be human?

Under the Skin is all about experimenting with humans and Glazer’s inspired decision to shoot many of the film’s scenes of the alien on location, without the supporting actors prior knowledge, teaches us something about how we enact, react to, and deal with desire and the role it plays in human downfall. As Glazer says, "You see human behaviour. You see what we are, in those moments”.


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