The only value I found in reading 2001 was that it established how Kubrick had stripped away the plot. A recent anniversary programme on BBCR4 with some of the production people highlighted how amazed and confused and maybe unhappy they were that the exposition scenes had been removed by Kubrick in editting. It only emphasises Kubrick's genius and vision that we are left with this masterpiece of cinema; when a director forms his movie around the opera of spinning satellites rather than a treatise on man's development and tool use.
However I wish I had never read 2001 because, as story, it doesn't have a fraction of the power, grace or ineffable emotional grip that the film does. I won't look at plot descriptions of Under The Skin. That isn't because I want to piece a puzzle together for myself, but because the movie demands an unobstructed view from a position of maximised perspective. It doesn't stop me wanting to pick up on the visual cues; like the lights departing from over the disused tower block in a Close Encounters hommage or the switch on/ switch off rapidity of the Johansson entity's engagement with people or the questions she asks to find out if these men will be missed ("I'm meeting someone"/ "I'm away home to my family").
Jonathan Glazer's desire to make a film in that vein should be applauded and lauded; simply for the attempt
Second viewing; The animation scenes of an eye being formed whilst language is being learnt lead me to compare this entities creation with the recent Ex Machina, which proceeds towards revelations that the machine understands human nature enough to fool people into helping her for her own ends,before discarding them instantly. A machine entity wearing the skin and clothes of a young woman. Looking at Johansson's creation (and it is a fine piece of restrained acting- not disconnected and blank but inhabiting a body, a vehicle.) in this light places it within a through line of stories about AI. Robocop's concentration on balancing machine intelligence and reactions against a man's emotional responses. Should the machine have control or the human. Oldman is fiddling forever with Robocop's "Levels".
How would a machine continue to function in a balanced manner with so much input from the human world around her. She has to process the blood of a flower seller's hand and then the man's disfigurement. A machine, to operate as an AI, would have to be open to stimulus and new experiences; and also to learn from them, so that it could pass as human. Whether it's an unassailable difficulty to "programme" such a machine- emotion chips and all; is something to be found out but Glazer presents a machine that slowly starts to fail. From obliviously leaving a baby alone on a beach to being unable to process the disfigured man's body and then on to trying to experience relationship and sex.
Glazer admirably reflects human behaviour in the machine's eyes. He presents a strong argument for the unstoppable power of human emotion. The machine captures the man but man's emotional power overwhelms her. It overwhelms all of us constantly, we all kind of hold it together; by learning how to cope rather than by conquering our feelings. Perhaps the machine reaches the limits of its processing power. To bring it back around to the beginning the previous succubus model is retrieved and disrobed and discarded story wise. Perhaps these models, like the Nexus models have a shelf life. Or they meet a man who doesn't follow back to the meat factory; whoever left the previous model in a ditch by the road or the guy out in the forest all alone- maybe waiting for someone foolish enough to wander on their own. Machines that are stimulating human desire; looking for men who will respond fairly instantly to a proposal, an offering of the body. Perhaps they are eventually always going to meet some man with no sexual control or a man freaked by the lack of ....orifice.
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. It serves its own ends a film like this or it serves the ends of the viewer (and reviewer). So I can sit here feeling quite smart for an analysis, hey that's no bad thing. It's nice feeling good. It's human nature. Ultimately films are mirrors of human nature. The coldness of this particular mirror tries its best to distance itself from the viewer. That's a useful function because it forces you to take a step back and gain perspective, which is lost when you stand too close to a mirror. Perspective is always a useful tool. The film doesn't ask you to look at it in detail (can't ask you more like). From a good perspective (not proper or correct which were the words I nearly used instead of good) Under The Skin fits with a wave of storytelling exploring the possible transference of humanity into non-human entities. The technological wave is forcing a new perspective on scientists, thinkers and artists.
The new perspective however is most useful for letting us look back at ourselves. How much are people (men) governed by sexual desire, how is it used against us or by us. How much are we conditioned by surface detail and by all the animal cues that weren't questioned in our animal pasts. Best looking woman meets strongest most virile man to make evolutionarily well-equipped baby. Rational versus irrational. How do we cope with our controlling feelings and how we don't control our feelings because they run at a profound basic programming level. How human nature may make AI impossible or how much will programming at a human parallel level have to advance to allow for artificial versions to succeed. Can they still ever really be as malfunctioningly complex as any common or garden human being.
There's still a lot of movies to be made on this subject. Maybe, instead of being lumped as science fiction, there will be so many that a new genre called "Machine Intelligence" or "Machint" or something snappier; will be formed in some academic factory somewhere. Then all the films back past 2001 and forward through Blade Runner to Under The Skin will be pulled from the uber-category of SF. I can see films being made of something like "Mockingbird" by Walter Tevis, and I can see how any film ostensibly about robots will have to have a character performance as strong as Scarlett Johansson's to make the story really pop along and sing. It is damned near perfect when a scene of a robot being offered a cup of tea becomes laden with meaning- "what's she going to do with that?"
What is particularly delicious about UtS is that I can run with a premise like machine intelligence impacted by the strength of human emotional intelligence (/stupidity), and I could point to the shop mannequin appearance of the de-skinned entity at the end as further signs that this is an artificial entity. Then once you decide it is, to all intents and purposes a robot, you can proceed from there- see if all the little jigsaw pieces fit together nicely (with the help of a well placed fist to bang them in if they don't cooperate). The book probably has to say more that nails down or refutes completely such an idea. It has to take a first person view of proceedings to function. I can't imagine how it could do that and still be the same story....hence the conclusion that it isn't; just like Glazer's previous stories aren't this story and don't have any bearing on this one. Just because someone appears to like jazz in one movie has nothing to do with the next one. The film doesn't seem to like jazz and the movie is a single entity operating all alone out in the world; Johansson-like.
The movie doesn't need any of these conclusions to operate. Glazer clearly has an idea of what he wants like any director. That doesn't mean he will necessarily end up getting it. The viewer will always fill in the blanks or lose interest; human nature again. The temptation is to fill in the blanks for the viewer so that you don't lose them- shepherding them to the end of the story. Kubrick's profound ability aka genius expressed through 2001 is that he recognised that the alien concepts of the movie demanded that all that "shepharding" could be stripped away and edited out. Whether Glazer intended to follow Kubrick's principles or came to those same conclusions is an interesting thought process, but unnecessary for me to know for sure. I'll restate that the story itself demands an alien perspective so the result that it shares an ambiguous lineage with 2001 is natural and obvious. Both deal in the un-understandable, the incomprehensible. Dangerous territory. If a viewer is a writer then you may seek to explain why you don't like a movie. If a movie isn't trying hard to be simple and uncomplex, then the quick answer is "I didn't like because I didn't understand it" or a more cultivated version "it wasn't understandable". Since every film of substance has its lovers and haters those who love it seek to explain it and those who hate it declare it nonsense. Neither are necessary unless you write about films. It's a handicap having to explain yourself. One should try to be aware of that. It could wash over you and leave you in an altered state (like a slightly re-programmed robot), and that would be a good use of your time...but try writing that down without making yourself look weird or stupid.
In this case, Glazer is experimental. He shocks. If the beach scene is the most shocking moment in film for you for a long time, then that should be enough, shouldn't it? If the goo tank is a marvellous design concept, then ditto. If Scarlett's astounding performance as an alien entity pushed back a frontier previously explored by Ian Holm and Rutger Hauer and the disembodied voice of Douglas Rain and the new entry Alicia Vikander, that's a reason to keep this movie in mind. Then over time and with gained perspective; it might seduce you into its cinematic Ford Transit and transport you to an immersive goo tank of deeper understanding. (God that last bit was awful huh?)