Under the skin key scene analysis.

Under the skin key scene analysis.

In the beach scene in Under the Skin a sub story takes place to emphasise human emotion. The scene shows a family on a beach running after one another to try save them from the power of nature. This sub story helps emphasise how emotionless the protagonist is. This shot is framed so the mum character of the family is very far away from the rest suggesting she is not salvable, it also foreshadows her in the sea as she is much further out from the rest.

Before this unfolds the alien is observing her text target coming out of the sea, this long shot takes place for a very long time to make the audience feel uncomfortable. Speech between the two characters then occurs a mid-shot is used for this. At point the speech from the alien character sounds as if she is reading it of a checklist, this is mainly done for practical reasons in the narrative, as she needs to target lonely guys so no one notices they are gone. There are no long shots in this scene as the character is being portrayed as an unsympathetic and emotionless character.

In the scene there are many shots where the other charters are framed to look tiny up against nature; this is because a key theme is the power of nature which is clearly portrayed in the sub story part. To add to this a part of nature is to do its job you could relate this to the alien character as she is put there to do her job, you could say she is also powerful as she is able to manipulate men into their death. As the action unfolds she stands there without a care in the world that people are dying , in some ways she seems “pleased” that this is occurring because it allows her to have no witnesses.

While the vigorous waves are crashing against the shore in a long shot a harsh sound subtle plays with the loud noise of the waves, this adds a sense of danger and makes the scene scarier for the audience. Then when the female character is walking forward the repeated soundtrack  from before plays, yet again the shot of her walking shows for a long time for an uncomfortable affect. This sound symbolises the death of another young male. As she walks of the loud sound effect of a baby plays, she completely ignores this and carries on dragging the body, this rejects stereotypes of women as she is affected by the baby and shows she is not a nurturing person. Yet again, this links to the fact she is not human and she does not feel human emotion what so ever, they do this because they do not want 

to directly tell you just yet that she is an alien, the film wants you to figure it out for yourself.

The performance of the main character seems as if she is not preforming at all, she has little expression in her voice or facial expression, and however, this is done for deliberate affect as is makes the character seem emotionless.