An alien looks down at its still-living human face-mask

Date

2013

Description

Creator of the image: Jonathan Glazer
Date of the image creation: 2013
Medium: Film
Person depicted: A human face-mask, Scarlett Johansson

This still-frame is taken from the 2013 film, ‘Under the Skin’, a surreal sci-fi tinged with aspects of body horror. The film takes an alien’s perspective on the human world, as it follows an extra-terrestrial being that takes the human form of Scarlett Johansson. The being stalks the streets of Glasgow. She drives a van, harvesting men, picking them up in scenes of un-empathetic eroticism. The continuing process of engagement confuses the alien’s hunt. She flees the city, beginning to experiment with her human embodiment. A connection made to a human that she meets on a bus, seems to further change her. The film climaxes in a forest in the Scottish highlands. Having left the man from the bus, the alien-in-a-human-skin seeks refuge in a hut and is awoken by a commercial logger who attempts to rape her. A chase through the forest follows, with the man tearing a large chunk of flesh from its back, revealing a black, inhuman interior. Terrified the man turns and runs. The alien then proceeds to shed its human flesh. This still-frame near the end of the film shows the alien being looking down at its still-living Scarlett Johansson flesh-mask. The living mask blinks mindlessly back at it. Shortly after, the logger returns, dousing the alien in petrol and burning it alive.

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