WEEKLY FILM: Under The Skin

Under The Skin is a 108 minute Sci-Fi Thriller starring Scarlett Johansson. It tells the story of an otherworldly young woman who drives around Scotland and tries to lure men into her van. It was co-written and directed by English filmmaker Jonathan Glazer and produced by James Wilson and Nick Wechsler.

Development of Under The Skin took almost a decade and was extremely tedious to begin with. Glazer decided to adapt Michel Faber's book Under The Skin after he had finished his first debut film, however development and production didn't begin until Glazer's second film, Birth. Producer Jim Wilson pitched a screenplay that closely adapted the book to Glazer, but he had no interest in filming it: "I knew then that I absolutely didn't want to film the book. But I wanted to make the book a film".

Glazer and his co-writer Milo Addica, who was to be later replaced by Walter Campbell, wrote and rewrote the script several times before arriving at an elaborate, big budget concept: an alien husband and wife disguised as farmers. This concept went ahead with Brad Pitt cast as the husband; however, progress was slow. Glazer changed his mind and decided to make a film about an alien's first experience in the human world from a female perspective. Several actresses were considered for the lead, including Gemma Arterton who was Glazer's first choice. However, in order to achieve sufficient funding they required a bigger, more well known star. This brought Glazer to choosing Scarlett Johansson who stayed committed to the project for four years up until it was finished.

During filming, Glazer really wanted realistic and organic scenes. To achieve this, most of Johansson's conversations in her van were unscripted and filmed with hidden cameras (after the scenes were they were obviously asked if they really wanted to take part in the film). Hidden cameras were utilised often in the film; not only in the van, but also when Johansson was walking through the shopping centre to 're-invent' her human disguise.

Visuals and cinematography are a strong element in Under The Skin. The establishing shot shows Laura (Johansson's alien character) first being created, although this is very unclear in the beginning until an eye seems to appear after being created by what I assumed to be alien technology or machinery. This is the most confusing scene in the film for me, however it actually does help explain the narrative to the audience.

A lot of the general visual style of Under The Skin strongly reminded me of The Neon Demon, particularly the scene in which one of Laura's victims seems to have his insides literally sucked out and deposited into some sort of thin red reservoir - another possible example of alien technology. In terms of the majority of the film, the melancholy nature and colour palette of the film links the cinematography to The Neon Demon even further. One more scene that strongly reminds me of The Neon Demon is the scene in which Laura is dragged into a nightclub by a group of (supposedly drunk) women; the scene is filled with flashing red lights

Cinematography was carried out by Daniel Landin, who had worked with Glazer previously on his debut film. I believe Landin intended the visuals to appear melancholy and dark to connote Laura's emotions, or lack thereof, as throughout the film more colour gets introduced to the visuals as Laura begins to become more 'human' and understand humans more. The final scene is almost completely white or grey when Laura is burned alive in the snow; to me, this connotes Laura's loss of any sort of emotion forever, or even her sadness when she dies knowing she will never get to fully understand or experience human emotion.



Trailing back to the establishing shot of Laura's eye being created: eyes seem to be an important part of the film's narrative. For instance, when Laura's boss (credited as 'The Bad Man' in the character and cast list) wants to check if she is straying away from her purpose on Earth, he stares into her eyes. I assumed he did this to see if her eyes contain any sign of emotion or if they are deadpan and emotionless as they were when she was created. Laura

also uses eye contact as a tool of manipulation when luring her victims into her van by faking a warm, friendly face; this links to the saying 'the eyes are the window to the soul'. She also uses her own eyes to examine her human face disguise to try and understand why she has the urge to stop what she is doing - which she does after looking into a mirror for a few minutes.

Performance in the film is undoubtedly impressive; Johansson successfully pulled all of her personality from her character Laura and made her seem literally alien and emotionless. Personally, I feel that all or the majority of performance credit goes to Johansson, as she actually had the challenge of trying to make a scene seem organic whereas the other actors had their conversations with Johansson filmed, making it obviously a ton easier for them to make an organic scene. Performance from other main characters such as the Bad Man - played by championship motorcycle road racer Jeremy McWilliams since they needed a world class motorcyclist who could ride around the Scottish highlands at top speeds - is impressive as well since they too had to drain all sort of personality and sense of humanity from their performances.

Editing for Under The Skin was done for Glazer by Paul Watts. Glazer commented on how editing in Under The Skin was a 'rigorous process' as they ended up with 270 hours of footage to transform into a 2 hour film when they had wrapped up filming. Another factor that made editing tedious for both Glazer and Watts was how Glazer needed to see what was being edited to create a vision and idea for that scene.

2 montages happen within the film; one focusing on men living their lives throughout Scotland (interestingly, none of these men knew they were being filmed so everything was organic in this montage), and another focusing on women instead - the intent of each montage is different however, as the male montage is about Laura studying and learning about human men (her subjects essentially) and the female montage is about Laura studying how women act and their emotions as she feels herself wanting to become more 'human'. 

The most impressive and fascinating part of Under The Skins editing is the scenes in what I have decided to call the 'black void room', also coined as the 'black veil' by other viewers. The parts of the scenes in which Laura's victims sink into the floor were all shot in a room with a pool that had a floor that lowered - the black tar looking substance was all added with computer editing, which I personally find impressive.

Composer Mica Levi composed Under The Skin's entire score with sound production by Peter Raeburn. Raeburn had suggested Levi to Glazer after hearing her collaboration with London Sinfonietta, Chopped and Screwed. 
Glazer wanted the film's soundtrack to mirror Laura's feelings as she experiences new things like food or sex for the first time. To guide Levi in achieving this, he gave her prompts such as "What does it feel like to be on fire?" - to me, this reflects a lot of Laura's main dialogue in the film which consists of questions like "Do you think I'm pretty?" and "Are you alone?" (this emphasises the idea that Laura is trying to learn about humans).
Taking inspiration from musicians like Giacinto Scelsi and John Cage as well as music commonly played in strip clubs, Levi used mainly a viola to write and record the film's soundtrack over 10 months. Levi used natural and 'identifiably human' sounds of her instrument, and the altered the pitch to make them 'uncomfortable'. 
A lot of Under The Skin's sound strongly reminds me of the sound in Blade Runner (both the original and the new sequel). The opening scene in particular reminds me of the scenes in Blade Runner 2049 in which Joe/K undergoes a test where he has to repeat a bunch of words to an examiner; in the 'creation' scene of Under The Skin, Laura can be heard saying and repeating a lot of words, one after another - presumably to learn the English language before she is put on Earth. Also, the general 'dipped in turpentine' sense of the whole soundtrack, excluding the track 'Love', is very similar to Blade Runner. 
Going back to the track 'Love' (which plays over the female montage I referenced earlier) - to me, this is the most significant piece of music in the film as it marks Laura's turning point. It is the 'warmest' and 'gentle' track in the film that reflects Laura's desire to be more like a human woman.
The final parts of the film feature less music to emphasise the sounds of the natural world Laura is experiencing.

One central theme in Under The Skin, suggested by Duane Dudek, is identity crisis; Dudek speculated that when Laura assumed her human disguise and started gathering information on human and their activity, this induced an identity crisis that causes her to 'spin out of control like a broken machine'. This idea of identity crisis helps to explain the beginning of the film where the Bad Man collects an unconscious woman from the darkness at the side of an empty road; the next scene shows a naked Laura donning the 'unconscious' woman's clothes and then shows the woman crying - the suggested identity crisis theme explains to the audience that this woman is probably another alien who also went through Laura's identity crisis but didn't get killed before the Bad Man tracked her down. 
Another main theme of the film is feminist and gender themes as well as themes of rape culture despite the fact that Glazer explained that he wanted to show a "human experience rather than a gender experience". Some critics commented on a sense of 'aggressive sexuality' and 'reverse rape culture' as the woman in the film has the control and power and the men are manipulated and used instead. 

Despite being a box office failure (almost half of it's original $13.3 million budget), Under The Skin collected several positive reviews, but also had a majority of negative reviews. From my own findings and research, it seems to me that seasoned film critics and passionate fans of film loved the film and managed to pull a lot of understanding from the film. However general moviegoers and audiences actually tended to hate the film, with their reasoning mainly being that it was 'too slow paced' and boring to them; in my opinion, this is because these people aren't as dedicated or interested in analysing film and creating their own ideas from films as other film fanatics or seasoned critics are. One negative review in particular that came from a 'general audience' member came off as very ignorant; this review stated that the film had nothing going on in it, he didn't understand it and it was too long, but the only good thing about it was that he got to see Scarlett Johansson naked. This just suggested to me that some general moviegoers are indeed ignorant and adamant about ignoring or not bothering to try and understand the point or general connotations of a film. 

In conclusion, Under The Skin effectively gives the audience a visually appealing and captivating performance as well as creating a rare and different take on the way stories are told within cinema.

Here is the trailer for Under The Skin:

WEEKLY FILM: It Follows

It Follows is a 2014 Supernatural Mystery Thriller that tells the story of a young girl named Jay who is the latest recipient of a curse passed to each victim through sex. The main themes of the film include death, trust and friendship. 

The film was written and directed by David Robert Mitchell and produced by 5 different producers under the production companies Northern Lights Films, Animal Kingdom & Two Flints. Mitchell began writing the film whilst working on a separate project that was intended to be his second feature film in 2011, which was pushed aside when Mitchell decided It Follows should be his next big film. He conceived the idea for the film based on his recurring dreams he had when he was younger about being followed: 'I didn't use those images for the film, but the basic idea and the feeling I used.' The idea to use the concept of sexual transmission came into play later in his writing as he liked the idea of something that could transfer person to person.

Cinematography was carried out by Mike Gioulakis, who wasn't too well known before It Follows. The main thing that stands out about the cinematography in the film is the minimalistic style and muted colour palette. Everything was shot in Detroit, Michigan on a wide-angled lenses, which Mitchell wanted to use to give the film an expansive look; this explains why the background of each scene is very apparent and gets the audience to pay more attention to everything going on in every scene. Mitchell took creative inspiration from the works of Gregory Crewdson, an American photographer best known for his slightly minimalistic and melancholy artworks; this explains the film's slight sense of 80's surreal suburban aesthetic, particularly the scene in which Jay sleeps with Hugh in his car. Lighting in the film is dim and melancholy, which again is due to Crewdson being Mitchell's main inspiration in terms of visuals.

Performances in the film are very impressive and convincing. Every actor helped to add to the sort of miserable, dark theme that runs throughout the film, but to me the most notable performance is that of Maika Monroe who plays main character Jay. Some other great honourable mentions are Jake Weary as Hugh, Keir Gilchrist as Paul and Olivia Luccardi as Yara. 

Editing in the film is mostly invisible, with smooth transitions and no harsh jump cuts, so there's not too much to say about It Follows' editing.

Sound in It Follows is one of the film's best features. The film's score was written and composed by Disasterpeace under the Editions Milan Music label. The whole score has an electronic vibe which enhances the 80's vibe I mentioned previously; overall, it is very reminiscent of typical 80's horror soundtracks, but has its own unique twist which makes it easily recognisable as the music from It Follows. 

It Follows received extremely positive response from both seasoned critics and general audiences, receiving an overall 97% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and getting a critic consensus of 'a rare modern horror film that works on multiple levels - and leaves a lingering sting'. 

Something interesting to note about It Follows is the interpretation of the films themes and meanings: many viewers theorised that Mitchell intended the film to be a parable to HIV/AIDS, other STIs and the social perceptions of the 'sexual revolution' and 'primal anxieties' of intimacy.

Overall, It Follows is an interesting take of psychological thrillers and horrors that gives audiences a fresh, new category of horror to enjoy.