Under the Skin

[mcjulie]

Short answer: atmospheric dark fantasy with some memorable scenes and Scarlett Johansson naked, but slow and lacking in story. Cautiously recommended, as long as you’re prepared to be kinda bored.

Comments

[molly_may]

I have a theory about art movies - that they are boring on purpose, and boring in a particular way, in order to signal “this is an art movie.” So they always have plenty of long suspended moments, usually well-filmed, during which there is no dialog and nothing in particular is happening. Professional cinema reviewers never seem to mind, either - it’s rare for glacial pace and lack of incident to be singled out as flaws.

Yes! I have noticed this as well. It's as if the filmmakers think that there's some sort of artistic integrity inherent in being dull, and that they're giving in to crass commercialism if every scene is actually engaging and drives the story forward.

[mcjulie]

It might be related to the notion that "high art" must be Chekhovian rather than Shakespearean.

http://mcjulie.livejournal.com/68463.html

[randy_byers]

I'm looking forward to this one, having liked the director's previous two movies. As for art films, I don't think they're deliberately boring. A lot of them are anti-narrative, and I think it's a philosophical thing. Story comes with built-in assumptions/guidelines, and the makers of art films are trying to escape or deconstruct those. They are often trying to get us to think about how meaning is created and to be aware of the artifice of the creation. If you like Story, the lack of it can be boring, but I don't think that's the goal.

[mcjulie]

I'm sure you're often right -- that art films shy away from standard narrative structure and the lack of conventional story is perceived as boring. But I speak more specifically of the kind of boredom Manohla Dargis praises here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/05/movies/films-in-defense-of-slow-and-boring.html?_r=0... )

[randy_byers]

I actually don't think that's what Dargis is saying there. "Faced with duration not distraction, your mind may wander, but there’s no need for panic: it will come back. In wandering there can be revelation as you meditate, trance out, bliss out, luxuriate in your thoughts, think." This is not a description of boredom, is it? She does say the Jeanne Dielman is tedious, but she says the film is trying to communicate the tedium of the character's life. I don't see her arguing that art films are boring just to be arty.

[mcjulie]

I didn't mean to suggest that she was making my argument, that art films use boredom to signify their artiness. I thought that she was displaying the reaction that this signaling is intended to provoke -- her contention seems to be that what people mean by "boring" in an art film is "giving you time to think."

I think that too. I just disagree that it is a virtue. If my mind is wandering all over the place, and I'm "trancing out" I would describe myself as bored. That's what I mean by bored. My attention has wandered away from the movie. It might wander back, certainly, and often does. But I don't count the space where my mind was wandering as points in the movie's favor. I think of it as a flaw.