Jonathan Glazer: 'Under The Skin'

A little while ago, I mentioned the advertising work of Jonathan Glazer in connection with the exhibition, 'Since 1843: In The Making', at Nottingham Trent University, where several of his familiar TV and film ads ran on a show reel amidst the work of other Trent alumni.  Whilst being impressed once more by the high production values, resonant imagery and sly humour of Glazer’s work, I couldn’t help my sense of disillusionment at such high quality work coming into existence purely to shift sportswear, T.V.s and expensive beer.  Call me an old hippy if you like but, ultimately, such output, however well realised,  just seems to make the world a little more debased and disappointing.  I know, - it creates work, fuels the economy, brings pleasure, etc, but still, I just feel my life become ever more enmeshed in someone else's marketing plan…

Jonathan Glazer

Jonathan Glazer, Still From: 'Sony Bravia (Paint)',
TV Ad., 2006

Hence, it was with interest that I went to see ‘Under The Skin’, [1.] - Glazer’s alt-science fiction feature film, the other day.  I enjoyed it immensely and, rather than being disillusioned, left the cinema feeling like my life had been enriched, just a little, for having watched it.

Scarlett Johansson.  Still From: 'Under The Skin', 2014

‘Under The Skin’ has received numerous critical plaudits and not a little media attention, in large part because of the presence of big-league Hollywood star Scarlett Johansson in the lead role.  Perhaps it’s a sign of the times that the participation of Ms. Johansson in a distinctly non-mainstream, experimental film should be greeted with distinct surprise.  However compromised by the demands of the marketplace movie-making may be, should it be such a stretch to believe that an actress who is, (I assume), serious about her work, might relish the challenge of working in new and interesting ways with a director willing to take creative risks?  Cynics might observe that it doesn’t hurt to have the occasional left-field entry on her CV, but I’m not exactly unknown for my cynicism, and am trying to give everyone the benefit of the doubt here.

Scarlett Johansson.  Still From: 'Under The Skin', 2014

There’s always a risk of including too many spoilers in a film review, but I don’t think it’s any secret that Johansson plays the part of a mysterious alien who prowls the streets of Glasgow in an anonymous van, preying upon lone men with what can only be described as a kind of fascinating blank allure.  The exact nature of her victims’ demise, in the squalid darkness of an abandoned house, is both ambiguous and highly stylised.  Glazer’s calm use of digital manipulation in these minimalist passages reveals just a little more each time but is far more effective than anything that might have been achieved with chaotic camera work, rapid editing or Grand Guignol.  The men are certainly ‘had’, but in a way that could not be predicted.

Scarlett Johansson.  Beware, - White Van Woman.  Still From: 'Under The Skin', 2014

This willingness to play everything down is the key to both the film’s success overall, and the power of Johansson’s performance in particular.  She is, of course, hardly a stranger to a particular mode of enigmatic, internalised performance, (although I sometimes suspect I’m the only person who actually likes ‘Lost In Translation’, [2.] - the film in which she first came to my attention.)  It can’t hurt either that she is blessed with a certain brand of glacial beauty and the ability to do that only-just-kind-of-smiling thing that seems to allude either to something far away, or an only partial connection with those upon whom it falls.  It appears that many of Johansson’s chance encounters with strange men were actually filmed 'for real' with anonymous members of the public, indicating a willingness on her part to go out on a limb, an impressive ability to play straight, and in passing, mastery of a completely convincing, English assent.  That use of middle class English tones to imply an alien presence on Scottish streets is both effective, and rather sly, just now.

Scarlett Johansson.  Still From: 'Under The Skin', 2014

The world through which Johansson’s character passes as the most unusual visitor, is distinctly mundane.  Lacking any particular gloss about her adopted appearance either, she drives through a dimly lit environment of dull streets, nondescript suburbs, trading estates and ring roads.  Having employed numerous memorable examples of heightened Capitalist Spectacle in his day job, Glazer proves here that he is more than capable of capturing the intrinsically bizarre nature of the over-familiar.  In this aspect, the film reminds me not a little of ‘Morvern Caller’, [3.] - another film in which an impassive female protagonist attempts to construct some kind of identity within Scottish surroundings that are strangely resonant through their essential drabness.

Scarlett Johansson, - The Woman Who Fell To Earth.  Still From: 'Under The Skin', 2014

Nicholas Roeg (Dir.), 'The Man Who Fell To Earth', 1976

Another precursor that springs to mind is Nicholas Roeg’s ‘The Man Who Fell To Earth’ [4.].  Whatever one thinks of David Bowie’s performance in that film, there’s no doubt it captures a similar sense of an impassive stranger attempting to make sense of an alien environment.  In Roeg’s piece, Bowie’s initially high achieving, and essentially exploitative alien is gradually traduced by the human society through which he moves, and this is a feature of ‘Under The Skin’ too.  Glazer hangs his script [5.] around two pivotal episodes.  The first is a moment of almost unbearable human tragedy that ably demonstrates Johansson’s character’s terrifying detachment.  The second involves a sea change in her relationship with potential human prey, and the start of something that might be called empathy, or at very least a growing curiosity about the species around her, (literally).

Stills From: 'Under The Skin', 2014

Beyond this point, her failing attempts to pursue this impulse see her character acquire previously unseen levels of vulnerability amidst the fog and rain of a Highland landscape.  Her baffled flight from the tentative beginnings of a considerate relationship is followed by an encounter with much darker aspects of human behaviour.  The film’s abrupt denouement is both visually arresting and truly shocking in it’s all-too banal horror.  Ultimately, there is little equivocation about which species is being examined here.

Stills From: 'Under The Skin', 2014

I’ve seen a number of films over the last year or eighteen months, most of which left me pretty unimpressed, despite their hype.  Consequently, 'Under The Skin' came as a very welcome surprise, and the best thing I’d seen since Ben Wheatley’s splendid ‘A Field In England’, [6.] last year.  He demonstrates the visual flair we might have expected, but also an ability to communicate an intriguing and unusual script with real intelligence.  His willingness to leave certain aspects largely unexplained, such as the sinister (alien) motorcyclist, who both assists and shadows Johansson, or her own back-story, only add to the film’s power to effect.  I should also mention the film's impressive, largely abstract, title sequence, which establishes its basic premise in a delightfully oblique manner.  Perhaps most impressively, he imbues what might have been a simple exercise in weird escapism, with real insights into the human condition and a distinct feminist perspective on the nature of inter-gender relationships.

Still From: 'Under The Skin', 2014

If the money earned flogging Guinness allows Glazer to realise films like ‘Under The Skin’, perhaps it proves that, in the world we must all inhabit, things really aren’t just black and white.

[1.]:  Jonathan Glazer, 'Under The Skin', UK/US, BFI/Film4 Productions/StudioCanal/A24 Films, 2014

[2.]:  Sophia Coppola (Dir.), 'Lost In Translation', US, American Zeotrope/Tohokushinsha Film/Focus Films, 2003

[3.]:  Lynne Ramsey (Dir.), 'Morvern Caller', UK, Company Pictures/Alliance Atlantis/BBC Films, 2002

[4.]:  Nicholas Roeg (Dir.), 'The Man Who Fell To Earth', UK, British Lion Films, 1976

[5.]:  Glazer co-scripted 'Under The Skin' with Nick Weschler, basing it on Michael Faber's 2000 novel of the same name.  See: Michael Faber, 'Under The Skin', Edinburgh, Canongate Books, 2000

[6.]:  Ben Wheatley (Dir.), 'A Field In England', UK, Rook Films/Film4 Productions, 2013