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Member Since: 11/24/2009
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some reading b4 bed
2. “Under The Skin” (2014)
Without question, it’s reductive to simply label Jonathan Glazer’s masterpiece as simply a horror movie. Like the neon-rust drenched sequence in the film where Scarlett Johansson’s alien who fell to earth is overcome by the sheer magnitude of human goodness and emotion, there’s just so many kinds of films layered on top of each other in “Under the Skin” that trying to distill it down to one genre is a fool’s errand. Having said that, we feel comfortable calling it a horror movie because it is deeply creepy and totally disturbing. Mica Levi’s fantastical, bewitching score does a lot of the heavy lifting in the creep-you-out department, but not enough praise can be bestowed on Glazer’s bold, experimental approach (using real people off the street for certain scenes, a reliance on visuals to tell the story, etc.) and Johansson’s career-best (defining?) performance as an alien using her sexuality to prey on men for… we’ll leave it for you to discover. With at least a dozen memorable, totally haunting moments singed into our memories for good (the baby crying helpless on the shore as the tide approaches, motorcycle men roaming the Scottish highways, the reveal of what exactly happens to these hapless men as they plunge into a black watery oblivion, the closing images, etc.), ‘Skin’ ultimately transcends generic classification to become, simply, a great film. Packed with ideas and insight into how women’s bodies can be reduced to tools, sexuality as a weapon, and proving that post-feminism theories are about as silly as saying we live in a post-racist society, this is a film to be unpacked and frightened by again and again. Yet its greatest feat is how Glazer realigns our sympathies in the film’s midsection, turning the villain into the victim. There’s true emotion going on amidst its chilly, sci-fi horror exterior. With this film, you have to follow it into the black void, willfully ignorant and understandably scared of what’s coming next. Thankfully, Glazer is an incredibly gifted filmmaker, and is thus to be trusted. Take the plunge.
http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplayli...0141030?page=5
night!
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