nude
Captivating, hypnotic and deeply disturbing in “Under The Skin”
By Jenny Alvarez
Photos By Alfonso De Elias
From visionary director Jonathan Glazer comes a stunning career transformation, a masterpiece of existential science fiction that journeys to the heart of what it means to be human, extraterrestrial — or something in between. A voluptuous woman of unknown origin (Scarlett Johansson) combs the highways in search of isolated or forsaken men, luring this succession of lost souls into an otherworldly lair. They are seduced, stripped of their humanity, and never heard from again. Based on the novel by Michel Faber (The Crimson Petal and the White), Under The Skin is a bizarre movie with a character who examines the human beings with her borrowed skin, until she is abducted into humanity with devastating results. Definitely is very provocative, intense, and intriguing hypnotically without any special effects. Scarlett Johansson performs a pattern full of female sexuality or empowerment which lures to a completely dark location, tempts her victims to strip naked with the promise of sex, and then the man sinks into a dark abyss. At the end of the story as a reviewer, this is a character full of obstacles and painful journey because this woman set her eyes on our chaotic planet or culture, crowd noise and as humanity is shown as creatures in a wild habitat. Eventually her tragic end doesn’t have a clear goal or a mission in a borrowed skin with a gorgeous but false surface. Definitely is a great movie with transformation and transfiguration.
Zoe Saldana Empowers Women
Renoir is a touch of love on a canvas
By Jenny Alvarez
Set on the French Riviera in 1915, RENOIR follows Impressionist master Pierre-Auguste Renoir (Michel Bouquet), who is tormented by the loss of his wife, the pains of arthritis, and the news that his son Jean (Vincent Rottiers) has been wounded in action. When the incandescent Andrée, aka Dédé (newcomer Christa Théret,) miraculously enters his world, the artist is filled with an unexpected energy. Blazing with life, radiantly beautiful Dédé will become Renoir’s last model inspiring some of his most renowned works including Les baigneuses (The Bathers). Back at the family home in Cagnes-sur-Mer to convalesce, Jean too falls under the spell of the new, redheaded star in the Renoir firmament. In their Mediterranean Eden, and in the face of his father’s fierce opposition, he falls in love with this wild, untamable spirit, and as he does so, within weak-willed, battle-shaken Jean, a filmmaker begins to grow.
This film has the complex relationship between father and son. Pierre-Auguste may be haunted by the loss of his younger wife and fearful of what might befall two of his sons serving during World War 1, but painting is still his life. Renoir includes his sense that wars shatter natural cross-border fraternities, the harshness of the class prejudices, the increasing disrespect for culture and also how his last muse was. This film is full of beautiful scenes of the countryside and some dialogues are plain but witty in some contents of Renoir’s canvasses into a visual blast of natural color and sound on the big screen full of romantic attentions in 111 minutes (A little long so you should be full of energy otherwise it could be very boring).
