(MOVIE REVIEW)"Under the Skin"

Compared with science fiction, the biggest flaw (or advantage) of science fiction films is that they need to use solid images to show things that do not exist in reality.

　　In October 2016, author Michel Faber’s novel "Under the Skin" was published by China Friendship Publishing House, and domestic readers finally had the privilege of seeing the original work of this work. This book is Faber’s first work. It was shortlisted for the Whitberry Award after publication. It was filmed by British director Johathan Glazer in 2013 and was released in the UK in March 2014. It was shortlisted for the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival. With the British Film Academy Awards.

　　The film "Under the Skin" starring Scarlett Johansson is classified as a science fiction thriller. Jonathan Glazer interprets the novel in a surrealist way. Although the audience has received mixed reviews after the premiere, his partner responded with "very good, just like punk".

　　The original novel is not limited to genre literature of science fiction and thriller, but integrates suspense, thriller, science fiction, fantasy and many other elements, and the content is rich and diverse. Faber used meticulous brushstrokes to portray the most profound social reality, but he puts on the coat of science fiction, allowing readers to observe and understand the human world from the perspective of a female alien, and peel her away layer by layer. The camouflaged skin goes deep into the character's inner world, exploring unknown alien creatures. Although the plot of the novel is not brilliant, but the content is both literary and entertaining. The irony and social thinking in the novel are even more obvious to the readers. It will not feel dull and tedious to read. On the contrary, touching pain points can be found everywhere.

　　In contrast, in addition to Scarlett Johansson's naked appearance in the film "Under the Skin" as a gimmick, it is mostly about the single narrative style, the obscure language of the lens, the dull plot, and the incomprehensibility. At the beginning of the film, the unnamed heroine played by Scarlett Johansson (referred to by Yseli below) captures a woman, carries her home, then changes into her clothes and drives a truck on the road. She drove on the streets of Scottish cities, constantly chatting up with strange men, searching for suitable prey.

　　In the original work, the author portrays Ysery as a weird woman covered in scars due to transformation, with an exaggerated breast, wearing thick glasses and outdated clothing from the 70s. She drove alone on the A9 highway in the Scottish Highlands every day, choosing a strong male "prey", and taking him back to her residence after anesthesia for treatment by her companion. The movie has deleted and changed many original content that used to explain the survival background of the female alien Iseli and her companions, leaving only her and the man riding a motorcycle, and did not even clearly explain their respective tasks and purposes, which greatly weakened the performance of the theme space.

　　Compared with science fiction, the biggest flaw (or advantage) of science fiction films is that they need to use solid images to show things that do not exist in reality. The film abandons the old-fashioned image of the heroine in the original work, and emphasizes the human characteristics with Scarlett Johansson's figure and the "beauty" of the facial features. She uses her appearance to predict the identity and background of the hitchhiker. The plot is also reduced to nothing. Deeply strike up a conversation. The lack of a large number of psychological activities also weakened the expressive power of the film, but the director took advantage of this to make up for the shortcomings from the visual and auditory symbolism.

　　The unconventional "home" similar to the "animal farm" in the novel is replaced by an ordinary and small house in the film. Ysery takes the selected man home, and the scene directly transforms into a different space with a pure black background. During the seduction process, the man also follows Ysery, who has taken off his clothes, and gradually walks into the black mirror. The liquid "lake" was imprisoned and peeled, and Ysery completed her hunting mission.

　　The blue-screen shooting technique when digesting the prey in the film is full of futuristic sense, coupled with the soundtrack full of typical modernism and expressionism, the picture is extremely tense, and the cruel killing is interpreted as a ritualistic physical elimination. The tense string music is full of discordant drums, which perfectly interprets the extreme anxiety and selflessness in contemporary society and people in society, dull and ruthless, chaotic and disorderly.

　　The biggest difference between the film and the original is that the director firmly nailed the focus on the word "skin", and the purpose of "hunting" by Yseli and her companions seems to be to get the "appearance" of human beings. In the novel, on the contrary, they are in captivity to fatten up the strong human beings they obtain, and then kill them to make luxury-grade "meat steaks" and transport them to the home planet. In the film, Yseli and her companion on a motorcycle are more contemporary in appearance than the characters in the novel, and more ruthless in their hearts. This can be seen from her hunting process and the killing of seaside men in the first half of the film.

　　Yiseli gradually developed sympathy in her contact with humans, became aware of her body, and began to have new thoughts. She tried human food, took the initiative to go home with human men, watched TV, went out to play, kissed, and even wanted to try real human sex. However, at the critical moment, she was surprised to find that her body structure did not have this function at all. She has given up her identity as a hunter, but she is unable to integrate into normal human society. The theme of identity in the novel is revealed here.

　　At the end of the film, Yseli fled the man's home and found a small house in the forest. However, "the tree desires to be quiet but the wind does not stop", the language of the lens here is a good hint of her future destiny. She was chased by the loggers and attempted to rape her until her "skin" was torn, and the loggers ran away in panic. Yseli took off her skin to reveal the true face of the alien. However, she never had the chance to return to the identity of the hunter, and could only be destroyed.

　　Although this film is still too dull and boring for most moviegoers, in this continuous visual hypnosis, we followed Yiseli through the soul-problem again and again, and all we saw were Is it real? What is hidden under the surface? There is the most real social reality in the fictitious world. Whether it is the original or the film, many issues such as identity, human nature, class, snobbery, compassion, lust and precept are worthy of repeated consideration. So, is "Under the Skin" really ugly? Not at all.