Through a Glass Darkly: on Under the Skin
It begins with a pinprick of light amidst the darkness of the unfeeling void. The coronas of some unidentified astral flare begin to converge; aligning, by way of a Kubrickian orchestra of motion and sound. Drowning in the opening moments of Mica Levin’s incredible modernist score, we hear the distorted tones of a clipped English accent before the revelation of what is being born in this moment. A seemingly human iris stares blankly at us. Welcome to Jonathan Glazer’s return to cinemas. Welcome to Under the Skin.
Based on Michael Faber’s 2000 novel of the same name, this is less an adaptation of the source text than an extraction of its essence. Detail and dialogue are abandoned in favour of atmospheric ambiguity. The central character, played by Scarlett Johansson, has been stripped of the name afforded her by Faber, as her mission has been stripped of its context. Motive and mechanics are not of importance in the elliptical narrative distilled by Glazer and his third and final screenwriter, Walter Campbell. In this incarnation of the Scottish Highlands, seen through the irises of the ultimate outsider, mood is most certainly king.
Johansson first appears peeling the clothes from the body of a dead woman. Supplied to her by a mysterious motorcyclist, the cadaver — who may or may not be a predecessor — sheds a solitary tear. For what, we know not. Taking the deceased woman’s clothes, the beautiful, icy huntress heads out onto the alien streets of Scotland. No hint as to her origins is given, nor her objectives, but her modus operandi is quickly evident; she cruises Glasgow’s streets, crawls its curbs in her white transit van, searching for solitary men — the kind that nobody will miss. She engages them in roadside small talk, awkwardly flirtatious as she assesses them before offering the chosen few a lift. This invariably leads back to her dilapidated old house, where she sheds clothes seductively, beckoning them forward, only to meet an eerie end in the oleaginous floor of her onyx nest.
The startling computer-generated otherworldliness of this deep dark lair, in which Johansson’s singular objective is embodied by a terrifying musical siren’s call, contrasts disconcertingly with the mundane grey of the British weather. Just as this extra terrestrial finds herself caught between two worlds and unable to reconcile with either, so the audience equally are. Glazer shoots Johansson’s interactions with various men as though they are documentary with purpose built fly-on-the-windscreen cameras providing the effect. This becomes all the more unnerving with the knowledge that in amongst the actors, some of the men with whom she converses were unsuspecting members of the public. Some viewers have clearly found this social realist aesthetic too jarring with the altogether more fantastical seduction sequences and science fiction themes, but for many these two juxtaposed components contribute to the disorientating milieu.
It’s with this is mind that the casting of Johansson becomes ever more a masterstroke by the British director. She feels out of place in her surroundings as much due to her smouldering Hollywood sex appeal as her — admittedly excellent — English accent. She is unearthly to those she encounters on screen, but feels equally otherworldly to those ensconced in darkened cinemas watching a glamorous American actress slumming it in Glaswegian suburbs. That Johansson’s performance — callous and unfeeling to a discomforting degree — is exceptional only heightens this insidious sense of alienation. Having played sultry temptress for the film’s opening half, she then excels as her characters begins to undergo change.
It begins with a pinprick of light amidst the darkness of the unfeeling void. The latest man ensnared in her Venus flytrap of a van suffers from serious facial disfigurement from neurofibromatosis and although she can observe that he looks different to other humans, this seems to be as far as her understanding goes. Then that infinitesimal hole in her shield appears as she speaks to him and begins — dare we ascribe such human emotions to her — to empathise with his loneliness. She now finds herself intrigued by, though never in awe of, this strange place that she has been sent. The mission takes a back seat and she goes off grid.
The most startling thing about the atmosphere of Under the Skin is how much it manages to invade you. Glazer’s masterfully manipulates Daniel Landin’s beautiful but cold cinematography and the frankly indescribably soundscape crafted by Johnnie Burn and the aforementioned Levin. Positioned in that indefinable grey between sound effect and score, it is this aural accompaniment that helps to mesh together the various elements of the overall vision.