UNDER THE SKIN is a collage of perspectives.
UNDER THE SKIN can be viewed on two distinct yet related tracks; as both a closed narrative and as a more abstracted series of elements; sounds, utterances, and the crossing of physical space.
The act of choosing a path, or a track, seems to be both denied and revealed, at once.
For the main figure of the film, as portrayed by Scarlet Johansson, the path is consistently followed blindly, or more clearly, without question or investigation. This instinctual motivation moves her graphically and sonically through the film. That her path is so direct (at least in the film's first three quarters) is not coincendently at odds with the choices encountered (from the outset) by the viewer.
If one tracks the specific shots that make up the totality of UNDER THE SKIN, creating a feature length motion picture, one notices movement across the left side to the right side of the frame. A viewer may step inside the directional instincts and patterns applied here, to track figures' lines, circles and colors. There are intersections of different figures' paths; one man may be tracked as he moves left to right; while she is being tracked moving right to left. The intersections form points that unite in a matrix like system.
The sound design; also in points (sounding out letters) and more elongated gestures (sounding out combinations of vowels with consonants, not quite speech), similarly follows the collage aesthetic.
Any anxiety felt at the outset of UNDER THE SKIN must be attributed to worries about the limited access to information caused by brief shot duration. Establishing shots and the establishing planet and plot exist in moments that are the briefest shot durations in the entire film.
The beginning.
The planet is an eye.
Her eye is a planet.
Title flash . Black lettering; white background.
A rapid cut to water fall. Cliffs, small lakes.
It's hills look like Scotland or Iceland; desolate. Dreamed.
No answers should be found here.
(BLA/BLU) blue is the first color seen after black.
brown is seen on the iris.
when we see waterfall and the road through hills/mountains, we see the blue of night before we see (Y, O, R) dots of yellow orange and red later on, in a matrix of rows and grids when the motorcycle is singled out among cars.
(Y)Unearthly bright yellow is on the jacket of the motorcycle jacket.
She drives. frame follows movement going from right frame to left frame.
She is on an escalator entering a shopping center. We follow.
She touches a furry jacket; (G, BR) grey and brown , she touches a pink top (P) , (BLA) black suede boots.
Next, a series of shots of gradually briefer duration. They inform us someone is applying makeup to someone else (both are women). we see a series of shots of women in cosmetic stores that have a woman employed by the cosmetic counter applying makeup to them.
the shots vary as follows:
a woman in the right side of frame has a woman in the left side of frame applying her blush.
then a different woman seated in the right side of frame has a woman behind makeup counter on left side of frame rubbing lotion on her arms.
Then a woman in right frame who has a woman standing over her in left frame applying eye makeup.
Fast cut to the same woman at a different angel; now she is in the left frame and the woman applying the eye makeup is viewed in the right.
Cut to a a couple seconds longer shot of a different woman in the right frame with a different woman standing in the left frame, leaning right with a mirror to show the woman her completed look.
cut to Her.
She is in the drivers seat again, in the right frame, (the wheel is in the left side of frame) applying coral (R) red lipstick that has a hint of pink like the clothing; the shade of the lipstick a bit deeper.
closer cut so now we see her mirror (compact) reflection of her putting on her lipstick in the left side of frame and a back view of her head in the right side.
Three short consecutive shots of men on the street moving left to right.
This is followed by a few more consecutive, paralleling (mirrored) set of shots of men on the street moving from right to left.
Most of them are seen 'crossing' within this movement, as in a street, or traffic.
She is seen driving, her van moving from right to left of frame.
A sharp cut as she stops; still. The wheel is in the left half of frame; she is in the drivers seat filling the right half. Outside her van window we follow her eyes and her thought; a man is seen in her window crossing right to left frame.
We now enter the interior section of the overall thematic movement of the film. Interiority here is radial.
