Under the Skin (2013)

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Movie
German title Under the Skin - Deadly Seduction
Original title Under the skin
Country of production Great Britain
original language English
Publishing year 2013
length 107 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Jonathan Glazer
script Jonathan Glazer
Walter Campbell
production James Wilson
Nick Wechsler
music Mica Levi
camera Dan Landin
cut Paul Watts
occupation

Under the Skin , German Long Title Under the Skin - Deadly Seduction is a British science fiction - thriller from Jonathan Glazer from the year 2013 with Scarlett Johansson in the lead role. It is loosely based on the novel Die Weltenwanderin by Michel Faber . The script was written by Glazer and Walter Campbell. The film is about a being in the form of a woman who drives through Scotland in a delivery truck . On the way it takes men with it, seduces them and then makes them disappear.

content

In an animated opening sequence reminiscent of Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey , an eye is formed. Shortly afterwards, a motorcyclist carries a motionless woman's body to a delivery truck. A naked being in the form of a woman undresses the woman and puts on her things. A tear runs from the woman's eye. The creature finally drives through Scotland in a van and begins to address men. In several scenes, men climb into the car with her and take her to an inconspicuous, run-down house. Upstairs, each man follows her in stylized scenes and both undress step by step. The naked man walks up to the woman and gradually sinks into a viscous liquid while she does not sink, gets dressed again and leaves the house. The men do not drown in the liquid. They float beneath the surface for an indefinite period of time, seeing and touching each other, but are largely apathetic. They are not doing well, their bodies change, they gradually lose shape and volume until only their empty skin is floating in the liquid. Dissolved pink flesh pours towards a discharge.

The pattern changes when she speaks to a man on the beach. He leaves her standing because people are threatened with drowning in the water and he tries to help. As an alien she does not realize that people are motivated by helpfulness and compassion, she has no feelings. The drowned man's crying child leaves her unmoved on the beach. Another victim has a disfigured face from neurofibromatosis . She does not recognize his special role. He is excluded from his illness and has never had a relationship. The woman flirts with him and takes him into the house, but then lets him go as the only victim. Whether she spares him out of sympathy or sympathy or whether he is perhaps of no physical value to her remains open. However, the man then falls into the hands of the motorcyclist.

The woman is going on a bus tour. At a bus stop she meets a quiet man who lends her his jacket in the rain, takes her into his house and gives her a room. The two of them sleep together in his bed the next day, but the woman abruptly interrupts the act and from now on behaves worried, almost afraid. She leaves the man and a little later hurries into a forest, where a forest worker approaches her. She looks for sleep in a shelter, but wakes up when the worker touches her intrusively. The woman flees, but is overtaken by the worker. He tries to rape her and rips pieces of skin from her body. He flees in horror. The woman sheds her skin - a deep black, gaunt body appears. The worker reappears, dousing the black body with gasoline and setting it on fire. The burning creature rushes out of the forest and collapses on a snow-covered plain. Smoke rises. In the distance, the motorcyclist is standing on a hill and looking out.

production

Tantallon Castle, a location for the film

Under the Skin was the third feature film directed by Jonathan Glazer after Sexy Beast from 2000 and Birth in 2004 . He had already started working on the film in 2001, but only continued after the completion of Birth 2004. In the meantime, the film was about an alien couple disguised as farmers in Scotland, with Brad Pitt already selected for the male part. It was only with the decision to shoot the film from the perspective of a female alien that work on the script made progress.

The film was to be produced by Film4 Productions in 2009 and is one of the last films to be co-financed by the UK Film Council , which was dissolved in 2010 . In late 2010 it was announced that Scarlett Johansson would be starring in Under the Skin . However, filming only began in October 2011.

The film was shot in various locations in Scotland, including in Auchmithie (scene on the beach), in the ruins of Tantallon Castle (the woman and the silence) and in the woods near Lochgoilhead (final scene). Numerous scenes, especially in Glasgow , were shot with hidden cameras, so small digital cameras were attached to the car that Scarlett Johansson drives in the film. In improvised scenes in which she speaks to men on the street from the delivery truck, she was instructed by the director Jonathan Glazer with a button in her ear. The film premiere was originally planned for 2012, but was postponed because re-shoots took place in October 2012. The costumes were created by Steven Noble , the film construction was done by Chris Oddy .

The film was shown for the first time on August 29, 2013 as part of the Telluride Film Festival and participated in the Venice International Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2013 . It was released in UK theaters on March 14, 2014.

A large-scale German theatrical release was initially not planned, as the financially troubled German distributor Senator Film assessed the film as "difficult to market". However, it was shown at German film festivals, including the Munich Film Festival on June 29, 2014 . The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on October 10, 2014. An initiative by German cinemas brought the film to a smaller scale in autumn 2014.

Classification and interpretation

Xan Brooks called the being Laura in the Guardian a "vampire-like space alien" ("vampiric space alien") and classified the film between horror and alien science fiction. Leo Robson noted in the Guardian that you don't know exactly what to look at with Under the Skin . The film title can be interpreted in an anti-racist way, as it makes it clear that everyone has certain similarities regardless of skin color or origin. The film has a feminist tone, Laura acts as a sex object and toy and acts as an observer and seductress. The film also has funny elements. Under the Skin makes the viewer think about what makes a person human beyond pure physical being, The Telegraph found . Matt Zoller Seitz stated on rogerebert.com that the film was difficult to pin down on one aspect and that it looked like it was out of time.

The theme of an alien in our world is reinforced in the film by the contrast between Scarlett Johansson and the run-down Scottish reality. The effect is illustrated as several scenes were recorded with a covert camera in public.

Under the Skin is thematically similar to the SF horror film series Species , where an alien in an attractive female form also attracts men, seduces and kills them. In Species , the seduction serves for the purpose of procreation and there are no mysterious elements, while in Under the Skin the focus is on the mysterious and incomprehensible of the encounter with an extraterrestrial intelligent life form.

reception

At the Venice Film Festival in 2013, the film received boos and positive reviews at the same time. At Rotten Tomatoes , the film received 86 percent mostly positive reviews.

In the British newspaper The Guardian , Under the Skin was described as an "icy parable of love, sex and loneliness". At the end of 2014, Peter Bradshaw named Under the Skin Best Film of the Year in the Guardian . For SPIEGEL-Online it was an “outstanding experimental film”; "In its best moments, this brilliant, if not flawless, film offers a viewing experience that the cinema has not achieved in years past." The Telegraph described the film as a "masterpiece".

For Variety , Under the Skin was an "undoubtedly ambitious, but ultimately rigid and silly story about an alien on the prowl" ("undeniably ambitious but ultimately torpid and silly tale of an alien on the prowl"). The Independent described the film as a "laughably bad alien hitchhiker movie". "Clinically cold experimental film that tests the patience of the viewer", summarized Cinema , and called the finale of the film and thus the resolution of the main character's identity "hair-raising ridiculous".

In 2016, Under the Skin ranked 61st in a BBC survey of the 100 most important films of the 21st century .

Awards

At the Venice International Film Festival 2013 the film was shown in the competition for the Golden Lion . Jonathan Glazer was nominated for Best Picture at the 2013 London Film Festival . The film received four nominations for the British Independent Film Awards (Best Director, Best Actress, Best Sound Design and Best Music). Daniel Landin won a Dublin Film Critics Award for Best Cinematography at the 2014 Dublin International Film Festival .

Web links

literature

Florian Auerochs: Planetary, dysphoric, nonhuman: Michel Faber's ›Weltenwanderin‹ in Jonathan Glazer's UNDER THE SKIN . In: Jörn Glasenapp (ed.): Weltliteratur des Kinos. Wilhelm Fink Verlag, Paderborn 2016, ISBN 978-3-7705-6050-9 , pp. 263-288.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for Under the Skin . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , July 2014 (PDF; test number: 145 675 V).
  2. ↑ The main female character has no name in the film; in the press she is occasionally referred to as "Laura", but the name of the woman in the original book is Isserley.
  3. ^ A b Peter Bradshaw: Under the Skin review - 'Very erotic, very scary' , Guardian, March 13, 2014.
  4. ^ Danny Leigh: Under the Skin: why did this chilling masterpiece take a decade? , theguardian.com, March 6, 2014.
  5. ↑ a b c Andrew Pulver: Venice 2013: Under the Skin heads triple bill of long-awaited films , theguardian.com, August 27, 2013.
  6. ↑ a b Scott Foundas: Telluride Film Review: "Under the Skin" , variety.com, August 30, 2013.
  7. ↑ Emma Jones: Scarlett Johansson on playing "unscripted" scavenging alien , bbc.com, March 16, 2014.
  8. ↑ Under the Skin , sueddeutsche.de, June 17, 2014.
  9. ↑ That's why the naked Scarlett Johansson is not allowed to go to the cinema . focus.de, May 2, 2014.
  10. ↑ See undertheskin-film.de .
  11. ↑ Xan Brooks: Under the Skin - Venice 2013: first look review . theguardian.com, September 3, 2013.
  12. ^ Leo Robson: Scarlett Johansson in Under the Skin: "Prick her and she doesn't bleed" . theguardian.com, March 15, 2014.
  13. ^ A b Robbie Collin: Under the Skin, review . telegraph.co.uk, March 13, 2014.
  14. ^ Matt Zoller Seitz: Under the Skin . rogerebert.com, April 4, 2014.
  15. ↑ Carole Cadwalladr: Scarlett Johansson interview: 'I would way rather not have middle ground' . Guardian, March 16, 2014
  16. ^ Dpa: Scarlett Johansson with a dark alien film . berliner-zeitung.de, September 4, 2013.
  17. ↑ Xan Brooks: Under the Skin - Venice 2013: first look review . theguardian.com, September 3, 2013.
  18. ^ Peter Bradshaw: The 10 best films of 2014: No 1 - Under the Skin . The Guardian, December 12, 2014
  19. ↑ Hannah Pilarczyk: Scarlett Johansson in "Under The Skin": A Seductive Alien . spiegel.de, September 24, 2014.
  20. ↑ Kaleem Aftab: Film Review: Under the Skin - Even Scarlett Johansson can't save Jonathan Glazer's laughably bad alien hitchhiker movie . independent.co.uk, September 5, 2013.
  21. ↑ Under the Skin on cinema.de