Under the Skin

Eight years after its production, Under the Skin remains Carine Adler’s only feature to date. A power and deeply unsettling psycho-drama, it traces one woman’s descent into promiscuity as a means of coping with her mother’s death. Yet this is not a film that proves sensationalist or purposefully controversial (though it bears comparison with the cinema of Catherine Breillat), rather, as the title puts it, it’s a work that focuses on what is on the inside; the guiding interior motivations as opposed to the external consequences.

As a test run, Adler completed the thematically similar short Fever in 1994. Included on the disc, it’s an intriguing presence, heralding the director’s obvious talent with actors, yet also fundamentally flawed. Its seventeen minutes prove to restrictive, forcing Adler to reduce peripheral characters to mere representations of arguments, whilst she also falls into the trap of many short film directors by taking an overtly stylised approach when one really isn’t necessary. That said, with Katrin Cartlidge at its centre, Fever does become an affecting character study, her part thankfully being more developed that those that surround her.

If Fever proves less impressive when put alongside Under the Skin, it also becomes instructive. Adler’s strengths remain untarnished in the three year gap, whilst the longer duration provides with the opportunity to expand and develop her themes (both films were inspired by Estella V. Weldon’s non-fiction Mother, Madonna, Whore, and, apparently, because their director was “great at scenes about sex”) resulting in Under the Skin becoming a much rounder, more complex work. Moreover, this added depth appears to have relaxed her stylistic impulses prompting a more restrained and mature approach, one that feels more in balance with the on-screen activities.

That said, the most impressive factor is again its lead, though it’s worth noting that Samantha Morton’s performance is no mere retread of Cartlidge’s. Most notably, Morton’s creation is a far more ingenuous and seemingly fragile figure (despite a mile-wide cocky streak), but more importantly Adler has provided the character with a greater extent of background information. Indeed, whereas Fever’s key moments came during Cartlidge’s interactions with the men she meets, Morton’s happen in the scenes she shares with on-screen sister Claire Rushbrook.

No doubt in some part the result of Adler’s own status as the eldest of three sisters, these scenes share an undoubted frisson of utter reality. It is not so much the dialogue itself which is important, but rather the rhythms at which the pair communicate, so much so that their characters’ relationship becomes almost immediately discernible. Moreover, these moments provide Morton with a grounding that Cartlidge was never quite able to achieve, and with this in place her individual scenes (especially the wonderfully judged audition for a church choir), not to mention her various, and occasionally fatalistic, sexual encounters, become all the more powerful. After all, the route that her character is taking into sometimes dangerous, sometimes deeply moving promiscuity is hardly an everyday direction, and as such needs as much foundation as possible.

The added depth also allows Adler to pitch a number of scenes at a high intensity without ever seeming overwrought. There’s an undoubted air of improvisation (partially the result of a low budget causing minimal rehearsal time) which works well with the banality of the dialogue. Not that this is meant in a negative fashion, rather it gives credence the reality of the piece. Even the voice-over, often the place for a writer’s more grandiose literary pretensions to take flight, never seems too far removed from the everyday, especially when Morton describes her sexual fantasies. Also important in this respect is Barry Ackroyd’s presence as director of photography. As with Fever (which Ackroyd also lensed), Under the Skin was shot on 16mm with all of the graininess that entails. Yet the effect seems grittier than that of Fever, in part because of the muted stylistic sensibilities, but also because Adler and Ackroyd have favoured a hand-held approach, one in which the camera seemingly never leaves their lead actress’ side as if it were, much like the filmmaker, trying to get right under the character’s skin. The other advantage is that proves perfect at picking up all of the tiny details, and not just in the production design, but also the characters. Seemingly throwaway instances, such as an innocent kiss on a forehead, suddenly appear to be among the film’s most important moments. Indeed, Adler hasn’t lost the short film sensibility of making every scene and every moment utterly integral to either the characters’ or narrative’s development. As such a scene will appear that seemingly encapsulates everything the film is about (the phone sex scene, the urination scene, the confrontation in the railway station), only to be followed mere seconds later by another.

Understandably, this succession infuses Under the Skin with an intense dynamism, but never at the expense of any of its characters. Morton’s motives remain ambiguous, but also complex and free of cliché; this is no simple excursion into nihilism or self-destruction. That said, such a dynamism does give the sense of a picture that is moving towards a worthy conclusion, and I’m not convinced that Adler provides one. Though Pam Cook notes a slight sense of irresolution in her sleeve notes (an edited version of her Sight and Sound review of the film’s theatrical release), the ending appears too tidy to accommodate what has come before and is also, perhaps, a little too upbeat. It’s certainly not enough to quash the intensity of the preceding hour or so, but it does leave an aftertaste of that kind that Adler did not intend alongside of number of those which she undoubtedly had.

The Disc

As one of their own productions, it should be expected of the BFI that this DVD look and sound as good as possible. And this proves to be the case. The original theatrical ratio of 1.66:1 is adhered to and presented on a clean (but non-anamorphic) transfer. Bearing in mind that Under the Skin was shot on 16mm, the attendant grain and warmth to the colours (Adler and Ackroyd favour a lot of reds and oranges) are wholly intentional. Likewise the sound, a DD5.0 mix, is equally pleasing. Despite being a low-budget dialogue-heavy piece, the film has a wonderfully atmospheric sound design, ranging from impressionist sonics to specially recorded tracks by the Aloof. In combination with the earthy film stock, the results are superb.

The extras are limited, but similarly worthy. The theatrical trailer is an abject lesson in the “sexing up” of a film, giving the impression of an entirely different picture, but the already discussed short Fever is especially welcome. Indeed, without the presence of a commentary by or interview with Adler, the piece takes on an extra significance as the only insight into how her filmmaking has developed. Certainly, even with its flaws, the short is likely to be watched as often as the main feature. (As mentioned, Fever was shot on 16mm, and as such has the expected amount of grain, but also suffers from occasional print damage. The OAR of 1.33:1 is adhered to, but sadly, as with Under the Skin, no subtitles, English or otherwise, are available.)