First off, I need to get the obvious shit out of the way. This is one of the most visually, and auditory movies I've ever seen. The reviews were right when they were calling Glazer the next Kubrick. They have a lot of similarities in the way that they use unusual shots, and music that most people would never think to expect in a movie, and it's just f**king fantastic. Every single shot is beautiful and helps to convey the character's emotions, thoughts, confusion and emptiness. The same goes with the soundtrack. Sends chills down my spine hearing those violins and drums. However, there only seemed to be one main theme throughout the soundtrack with small variations in each track, but, hey, it works. Nothing wrong there. Both of these elements combined worked perfectly in that they were able to keep my attention the entire time, while also being able to make my thoughts wander off into all of the right places, and by that I mean, get me to think of the themes of the movie, and the importance of symbolism in the visuals and audio.
As for the actual story line, it is very different from your average joe flick in the way that it tries to express itself. Again, very similar to some of Kubricks techniques. The director tries to get YOU to think about what's happening and you have to come to your own conclusions and speculations. There was not a single bit of exposition in this entire movie. I'll try my best below to interpret character thoughts, motivations and the like.
The movie starts off with just one dot of light in the center of the screen, which expands, and has some sort of cylinder enter inside of it. Now, this is the only part of the movie where I was thoroughly confused as to what was happening on the screen. The only thing that I could come up with was this was Scareltt's entrance or birth, into this world. Her character is like a blank slate of nothingness. She doesn't seem to have any wants or desires that I was able to discern. One by one, she seduces her prey to harvest them for meat, and she thinks nothing of it. That is until her last victim who was a very disfigured man, who would be widely seen as ugly, and she points out the only good characteristic of him that she could find, which were his hands. He's the first man that she allows to actually touch her, and she actually enjoys it and yearns for more human touch. When she brings him back to her home she can't follow through with it, and ends up setting him free and making a run for it; away from her partner/other secret alien agent guy who seems to be in charge of her. While driving she ends up in a massive fog, and literally and metaphorically, she is lost. She doesn't know what to do, or what she wants to do. So, she completely abandons the vehicle, the same one that she used to kidnap all of those men, completely leaving her past self behind, and just walking the road to see where it leads her. By this point, she thinks that she wants to be with us. She's seen the kindness of humans, and yearns for more of that, so she tries her best to become a human. She ends up at a restaurant, and orders some sort of chocolate cake. That's something that is almost universally loved by humans... the moment she tastes it she spits it out. It's disgusting to her (I assume she ate some of the men she harvested?), and this is the first sign that she can't become one of us. As she leaves she meets a kind man, who recognizes her distress and attempts to help her. They begin to form a relationship, and right before he can insert his penis into her, and fully connect as human beings, she realizes again that this isn't for her, and something like this would never be possible, which throws her mental state into disarray again. Again, she wanders lost and ends up in the woods, and during this walk she meets a man, who tries to give her some unwanted help (I knew right away something was up with this guy. I thought he was a serial killer or something.
). She finds a small shelter that hikers are free to use, to take shelter from the dangerous world. In there she thinks she'll be safe, but as she falls asleep the man comes in and attempts to molest her, and she flees the scene. The man eventually catches up to her, and attempts to rape her. In this altercation he ends up ripping her skin, and we get our first glimpse at what's UNDER THE SKIN. The would be rapist becomes frightened and runs away. She then tears away the rest of the disguise, and we see what's underneath. Essentially, nothing. Just a black humanoid figure, which represents the blank slate that she started off with, with no personality or ability to think for herself, and the skin that she had been using was a tool to gain some of those human characteristics. The skin has been torn away and she is back to nothing. The man returns, pours gasoline on her and burns her alive. She flees to put out the fire, I guess, but there is no real urgency in her movements. She has given up. She saw what humans were capable of and she wanted that. She realized that this wasn't going to possible, but tried anyways. In the end the worst of us still rejected her, and in the end she accepted that and let herself burn away.
That was my interpretation of the entire film anyways, but that's why I absolutely loved it. It was a perfect film.
