Essay Questions

Discuss the opening scene of the movie and its significance.

The opening scene of the movie shows the image of light exploding inside a darkness and forming variously shaped and colored circles which finally form into a human eye. This is followed by the main character’s pronouncing of words out of a dictionary in order to learn the human language. This scene is striking in its similar imagery to the imagery of creation of the universe, the creation of life. It is also in a stark contrast with the ending scene with the realistic destruction of the same life by the human hand.

Discuss the movie Under the Skin as an allegory.

Under the Skin can be perceived as an allegory of the human nature, human interrelationships as well as their relationship with the nature. The movie shows the humanity through the eyes of an alien, necessary for a complete neutral or unbiased picture. The movie shows the obsession with superficial beauty, with the outer shell rather than the soul. It shows human kindness as well as the opposing human cruelty. It shows human fear and destruction of the unknown in the last scene with alien’s death. That scene could also be seen as an environmentalist message, because no matter how much human kindness alien experienced, it took one evil individual to completely shatter that and destroy her.

How is the perception of beauty shown in the movie?

The movie’s most important theme and message is the perception of beauty. One of the first scenes as alien enters the human world is showing the human obsession with outer beauty. Alien observes human women putting on makeup and dressing up, and she mimics it, knowing that it will help her lure men in. Alien was able to lure men in because of her beautiful appearance, most of whom see nothing further than that, which makes them an easy target. The appearance of a man with a disfigured face marks the turning point for the alien, but also goes in favor of the message that the beauty is only skin-deep.