Recommended Viewing: UNDER THE SKIN
Under the Skin is a film I have struggled with for over three years. The only thought I had after seeing it for the first time was, “What in the world did I just watch?” It was a film so alien (literally), abstracted to such an extreme that I perceived it to be impenetrable, I honestly didn’t know how to feel about it. In hindsight, my reaction had nothing to do with the film itself and had everything to do with my lack of experience with avant-garde art and my unwillingness to embrace that art. The first time you come across something that is radically different from anything else you’ve encountered, it’s only natural to be weary. But if that thing really is remarkable, no matter how conflicted your first impressions of it may be, you won’t forget it and a part of you will want to revisit it again to try to better understand it, and each time you do so your appreciation of it will only grow. In a nutshell, this has been my experience with Under the Skin.
This makes Under the Skin a difficult film to recommend to others, and a lot of people would say it’s “not a movie for everyone.” In reality though, there’s no piece of art, however exceptional one might be, that will appeal to absolutely everyone, and I would make the case that Under the Skin is simply a film that has the highest respect for the intelligence of its audience, something that is a rarity in movies nowadays. On the surface, there’s nothing all that radical or special about Under the Skin. If you just read a plot description that told you it’s about a mysterious, nameless woman, played by Scarlett Johansson, who is driving around Scotland trying to seduce men late at night, you’d think you’d know what type of movie to expect. The “what” of Under the Skin- the premise, essentially the inverse of slasher movies (where a monstrous male killer preys on an adolescent female and her friends), is simple and straightforward, but where things become interesting is in the “how,” or in the way it goes about having that premise play out onscreen.
Under the Skin has a narrative, one that actually makes perfect sense, but it’s communicated almost entirely through static/expressionistic visuals and atonal sounds. There is no spoken exposition to orient you on what/why things are happening, as the film has enough confidence that the viewer will be able to do this for themselves through the visual information they are presented with. At first, this can feel frustrating (as I myself felt at many points during my first time watching it), being that this is the exact opposite approach that so many Hollywood movies take, but looked at in a different light, it can be an incredibly liberating and gratifying experience when a movie leaves it up to you to create its meaning without holding your hand at every beat along the way. Film, after all, is a visual medium, so what’s wrong with a movie boiling itself down to the most basic building blocks of its form and letting that dictate its function? We often think of the “what” of a story and the “how” it is told as being two separate things, but Under the Skin is a good reminder that the two are inseparable and that the former can’t exist without the latter.
That said, just because something is unconventional doesn’t necessarily make it good, and the line between being profound and pretentious is thin. However, there’s a lot to be gleaned from how Under the Skin shows both the beautiful and ugly sides of humanity, solitude, appearances, and sex, provided one goes into it with an open mind and gives the film their full, undivided attention. On my most recent viewing of it last week, I was particularly struck by the film’s commitment to the restricted point of view of its protagonist, as we see everything through her female gaze at all times. I realized that this is a big part of what makes the film feel so alien, as even though there are plenty of films that have female main characters nowadays, none of them are as intensely focalized and limited in perspective as Under the Skin. If you look past the sci-fi elements and read this as an allegory, this is really just a film about what it is to be a woman in a strange, hostile world that is dominated by men, and the way it conveys those feelings to those who are watching it, for the most part only using sound and image, is poignant and never condescending. A lot of movies could take notes from this one.
Most of all, Under the Skin has taught me a valuable lesson about art. From my first viewing, where my sole reaction was WTF, to my latest viewing, which was a revelatory experience, I’ve learned not to assume that I am above any work of art. Too often in our instant gratification, knee-jerk reaction society today, everything gets reduced to a simple binary like: yes/no, like/dislike, agree/disagree, good/bad, normal/abnormal, etc. In doing so, we are doing a disservice to ourselves, as the tool of critical thinking is more and more becoming a thing of the past. When we look at art, and particularly movies, we should not merely reduce them to the realm of entertainment, say if we enjoyed or didn’t enjoyed them, and move on with our lives. Art is designed to challenge us to feel and think, and if we want to get the most out of art, we have to make the effort to probe deeper into ourselves. Ask yourself what specifically it was about the work that resonated or didn’t resonate with you. Actively engage with it and allow yourself to become more than just a one-time, passive consumer. Reflect on what you’ve experienced by continuing to work through it in the coming days, months, years. And don’t assume that something you don’t get right away isn’t worthwhile. Sometimes a work, for whatever reason, just doesn’t connect with you when you first encounter it at that specific point in your life, and that’s ok. Have faith in your ability to figure it out for yourself, and return to that work that initially provoked you when you feel ready and the time is right. Where once there was darkness, you might now find light.