Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013)
I'm not sure what we're doing here, or how any of this started. It might be a work or non-work related situation. I really have no idea anymore. Truth be told, I don't really understand you.
You stand there in front of me and you're talking and the words that you're saying are interesting, or maybe I *should* find them interesting, but there's something else going on for me that stops me from really listening to you or caring about the words that you're saying.
There's a small insect traversing the wide desert of your face, unbeknownst to you. It's been there for a while now, and you keep brushing at it with your hand. You're obviously aware that it's there, somewhat, kind of, but not as aware as I am. Because, of course, I'm looking at it. I think it's a fruit fly. Drosophilia Melanogaster. But I could be wrong. It's really very, very small and I start thinking about how its experience of your face is so very different from mine. It only experiences you as a landscape, not as a person, and then I start thinking about you as a landscape. The sound of your voice being nothing more than the low rumble of the earth.
There's also a tree behind you, blowing in the wind, back and forth. And there's a light refracting through something making an array of colours that only appears when the tree swings to the right. Then I notice that what the light is passing through is water, and then I'm wondering how it is that that range of colours is made by nothing other than light and water. And only down to a series of coincidences that aren't being manipulated by anyone. It's just chance. That light parade is just chance. As is the way in which my eyes read colours that are created from daylight. If I were able to see other spectrums, this would all look so very different.
Now I notice that there's a couple arguing in a cafe behind you. They're too far away for me to hear anything that they're saying. They're also trying to keep their behaviour as close to something that is publicly acceptable as possible. But they're failing at this. Whatever feelings they're going through are too raw for them to be able to pretend that everything is fine. And it surprises me that this doesn't happen to more people more often. That more people don't slowly buckle and crack with the relentless weight of it all. She's crying now, and it's only a matter of time before he leaves. But there's nothing so very new about this situation. It's probably new and scary for them, but in the wider picture this has happened before, and will happen again.
Suddenly I'm not standing in front of you anymore. I'm in a vehicle, and although I have a vague memory of how I got from one point to the next, I don't have details about the segue. The vehicle affords me temporary silence. No one is talking to me. And I get to watch an array of faces passing by. We're separated by glass, but then I'm separated from everyone by glass, all the time. I could feel this when you were talking to me, but you didn't mention it, so I decided it might be construed as rude to say anything. Whether this wall of glass is actually there or not seems like a moot point. What matters is that I just don't connect to any of you.
There's a strong gust of wind, and it is this that alerts me to the fact that I'm not in the vehicle anymore. I'm in a forest. And everything around me is either dead or alive, but all piled on top of each other. New life grows on top of old life: the dead carcasses of trees that scatter the forest floor are thick with a spongey, bright green moss. The tree died and nobody cared. But now it's a base for new things to grow on. It feels like I've seen this before, and I have, but not quite like this. A few steps more takes me to the body of a dying animal. It's breathing heavily. It doesn't have the energy to run, not anymore. It looks at me and I wonder if it sees me as a threat or as some sort of saviour. Either way I'm neither of these things. I'm simply here.
Now there's nothing else here but me and the animal. The forest has gone. I understand now that the animal has to die, there's really no other choice for it. And I'm going to have to be the one to kill it. This is okay. I'm just helping it to do something it was going to do anyway. Everything has to die eventually, and whether it happens sooner or later is really just semantics. I don't think I particularly want the animal to die, but I guess that's how these things go.
Eventually all of this will happen again, and probably quite soon. It seems that the best thing to do might be to not think about it all too much. Or possibly to think about it a lot. One of these things is probably true.