A24 Film No. 7: Under the Skin (2013)

Jonathan Glazer gifted us with what I think is one of the best sci-fi films (with strong horror tones) of the XXI century—one I honestly cannot believe I hadn’t watched before. There are so many elements that stand out as exceptional in this movie, from Mica Levi’s fantastic score, which creates sonic ambiences that keep you on the verge of your seat and submerged in a nightmarish fever dream, to everything visual in the film: the colors, the scenery that often feels out of this planet, the contrast between Scarlett Johansson’s character and the rest of the people, etc. However, I want to focus on what I took to be the film’s overarching theme, one that will definitely keep me thinking about it for weeks.

Under the Skin speaks heavily about the idea of Otherness: the Other both from our “human perspective” and from what a hypothetical alien might see when looking at us as a species. The film tells the story of a human-like extraterrestrial being who disguises herself as a woman (played by Scarlett Johansson) and wanders through Scotland, preying on men in order to, it seems, nurture herself. She lures them to her place, where she submerges them into a liquid abyss. She is followed by a motorcyclist who appears to work under her orders and, at times, seems to be keeping an eye on her. He almost acts like a familiar, which works if we think of her as a kind of vampiress feeding on men. But the essence of the film goes far beyond this basic plot.

After her creation, shown in the film’s opening scene, we follow the woman’s journey on Earth. The use of images that appear to have been filmed by hidden cameras, almost in a guerrilla style, makes us more observant of our own world, as if we too were studying it and trying to understand it—just like the woman is doing. There is an uncanny feeling in seeing scenes that could easily be part of our daily lives, like a trip to the mall, yet here they appear distant and strange. Even natural landscapes feel so surreal that they seem otherworldly. The film creates an uncomfortable disconnection, but it does not fully place us in Johansson’s shoes. She herself clearly does not belong, and her presence is persistently unsettling. There is excellent work in costume and hair design: her clothes, makeup, and hairstyle make her stand out in every scene. The score also contributes strongly to this uncanniness, especially the violins during the scenes in which Johansson lures men into the liquid abyss, creating the feeling that we are witnessing something we should not be seeing.

The skin that creates the Otherness

British-Australian scholar Sara Ahmed introduces the idea that groups and collectivities have borders that determine who belongs and who does not. Our skin functions as a border: through it, we feel and register impressions of subjects, objects, and spaces, which in turn shape our identities, how we negotiate our image, and whether or not we belong to a group. This conception of community is deeply marked by emotions (although it is interesting to think about this in relation to Johansson’s character, who displays no clear emotions and instead appears almost like an empty vessel). Ahmed explains that emotions such as hate, anger, love, and fear circulate differently and help establish who constitutes the “we” and who becomes the “other.” While this is obviously a very simplified presentation of a complex philosophical theory, I do see strong resonances with both the film's title and its final scenes.

Johansson’s character literally wears human skin in order to walk among us, and it is precisely her body that allows her to achieve her goal of seducing men. She is perceived as belonging, as part of the group. However, when she encounters the man with tumors on his face (someone who would socially be perceived as different, as an “Other”) she begins to recognize her own difference and, in a way, question who she is or perhaps even question if she can belong or not to this world (or something in that vein). This moment breaks her and leads her to act more recklessly, slowly removing her from the collective and revealing the otherness she has been trying to conceal. In the final sequence, during her altercation with the logger, her true skin is revealed, and this revelation ignites fear and rejection in her attacker, ultimately leading to her destruction. I read this extraterrestrial narrative as paralleling the experience of immigration, in which individuals attempt to inhabit the “skin” of the host nation in order to integrate and be accepted as part of the “we.”

While bodies are such an important part of the film, they also collapse: the men’s bodies dissolve into liquid, the skin separates from the “true” alien body, and the imploding man represents moments when bodily boundaries collapse. I see this as a terror of losing distinction between inside/outside, self/other. I don’t want to bring more heavy theory into this discussion, but this precisely falls along the lines of Julia Kristeva’s concept of abjection: the feeling of deep discomfort or horror we experience when something breaks down the boundary between what we consider “ourselves” and what we consider “not us.” 

I also find it significant that, at the beginning of the film, the woman is a predator of men, reversing the usual trope of gendered vulnerability. These men move through the world without the same fear that women often carry and do not hesitate to get into a van with a complete stranger simply because she looks attractive. However, once the woman begins to break and become more vulnerable herself, she becomes a victim of sexual violence, which leads to her persecution in the woods, a sequence that I consider one of the most terrifying moments in the film. This is only rivaled by the underwater scene in which a man implodes: visually stunning, but an image that is likely to haunt the viewer for a long time.

Thinking about how this film fits into the A24 universe, there is a clear preoccupation with identity and with the question of who we are versus who the Others are, explored here through the framework of a sci-fi nightmare. We are very far from the studio’s earlier coming-of-age films, which, although they also engage with questions of identity, do so in a much more accessible and intimate register. Under the Skin operates on a deeper level of meaning and in a significantly darker tone, making it a more demanding film, one that may alienate audiences unwilling to undergo such an unsettling journey. This is not an easy movie; it is certainly not one to watch while scrolling on a phone. It is an intensely sensorial experience in which sound is just as important as the visual, to the point that the score and sonic textures almost function as characters in their own right.