I've read a lot of summaries that says Scarlett takes the clothes of a dead woman in the first scene. Nope, that chick was totally not dead. You can see her nostrils moving slightly, which at first I took for a mistake, but then you can clearly see a teardrop fall from her eye. She was paralyzed, dragged into a white van which contained the loading room from the Matrix, and watched some stranger steal her clothes.
That is horrifying.
Wait, I'm wrong. The lady at the beginning was an alien like Scarlett, but she started to feel emotions, so they replaced her with Scarlett. My mind is blown. This movie is so bizarre.
sharelol 'loading room from the matrix'
No she clearly wasnt dead, I thought she used her the way terminator used his first victim: simply for the camoflauge of their clothes to infiltrate society without drawing attention to herself.
How did you get she was replacing her. That could very well be the case but so early into the movie, I didnt see any clues towards that.
That's what I figured too, and there really isn't any big clues. However, I've heard a lot of people suggest it, and it really seems to make sense given the story. I believe the aliens created a synthetic humanoid (Scarlett) who isn't even truly an alien, just their creation. I think MM was retrieving the girl and her clothes because she was another malfunctioning synthetic being, and she posed a liability if anyone found her.
Not to mention she fits their M.O. Dark seductive clothes, dark hair, pretty. The single tear drop falling is really the only big clue, I thought the woman was terrified, but her eyes seem sad, sympathetic. Plus, throughout the whole movie, you never see them abducting women, just men. There's not much to go on, but this whole movie gives you so little information to work with, I wouldn't put it past them to do something that subtle.
Brilliant! That really makes sense - nice one :-)
shareTo those who read the book or know anything about Scandinavian folklore it is obvious the main characters are Selkies. Different than Mermen/Maids who were usually thought to "save" drowning sailors, the selkie was known to shed/swap skins after coming ashore to seduce and lure their fisherman victims away to be drowned. There are many, many myths on the subject, look some up! One of my favorites involves the human who so fell in love with his selkie he hid her skin from her so she couldn't leave until the badass husband selkie came and tore him a new one. (Yea the male selkies, like in this movie, were always thought to be violent ;p)
This was one artist's modern-day retelling of one such fable... and from the not comprehending language, to her confused interactions with our world, to eventual human-like compassion... was quite impressively done. Kudos go out to Scarlett as well on a phenomenal acting job.
Hope this helps clear some of the confusion up? Cheers, Eliot
That's awesome, I never heard of that. I still think the creatures were extraterrestrials, but it sounds like they definitely drew influence from the Selkies lore. Perhaps their big theory were that Selkies were aliens themselves?
This movie offers so many intriguing questions, then gives you just enough information to figure out your own perspective. It's like the opposite of LOST and not nearly as long-winded.
oh in Faber's original novel they totally were ETs, my point was as a writer growing up in Scandinavia he was indeed inspired by the Celtic lore of selkie skin-swapping. Imo all historic lore is somehow attributed to truth, like mermaids are thought to be the delusions of shipwrecked sailors. I mean, for all we know the selkie was made up by some Viking earl who needed an alternate explanation for his cross-dressing, transvestite son to give the confused peasants ;p
Being part of a greedy corporation (from the novel now...) that sent agents on land to harvest & seduce stray manmeat because we were a yummy delicacy makes sense too I guess lol
so obvious is it, well how patronising, because in the full book it's based on, the 'aliens' were apparently extraterestials, harvesting humans as a delicacy - that's what I've been told - the film doesn't clarify or exactly follow the synopsis on wikipedia, so yeah you can make up what you want
shareNope sorry but unless "Selkies"
Come out out a space craft(seen pretty clearly above the tower block) its not one of those.
She wasn't dead, nor did her clothes got stolen by the alien (at least.. not just her clothes only)..
Actually her skin got stolen but she wasn't dead.
At the end when the alien removes the skin and watches the face you can still see her blink her eyes.
"Gar nicht so übel, du kleine Schlampe. Man sieht sich immer zweimal, Kleine."
The girl at the beginning is one of the aliens, another femme fatale who ended up feeling emotions and sympathy for her targets. It isn't outright stated, but it makes a lot of sense, and it's the theory I go with.
shareHow did you come to the conclusion that the girl/alien on the floor had her skin stolen off of her when the alien is standing in front of her, naked with skin on her already? You can see skin on both of them at the same time.
shareThe woman was an alien and was dead. What happened to Scarlett's character is what happened to her. My best guess is that the beings found some way to keep the skin animated when it was used as a disguise. When Scarlett's character takes off her skin, we see it produce lively functions like eye blinking and muscle twitches. It seems to be part of some of their technology.
shareSuch advanced biotech, but they can't make a simple GPS locator to keep track of their machine.
shareNo, she was alive and human. She was paralyzed. They only took her for her clothes. Scarlett already had her skin and didn't need hers. She was just an insect to them as told by the way Scarlett looked at the ant that was on the clothes. She shed a tear because she knew she was going to die and she knew she wasn't in the presence of humans.
Please let me know if I spelled something wrong. I actually DO give a s**t.
Convincing. I'll go with your theory. The beginning of the movie is strong with hints and begs to be seen again.
shareYour view is pointed out by the fact that the "bad man" found her in a ditch on the side of the road, then put her in the back of the van.
I got the idea maybe she had been assualted and left for dead...but the fact tears come out of here eyes at the end when ScarJos character is undressing her and taking her clothes made me originally think maybe she was one of them and she was being replaced for whatever reason, but your point about the working skin still working after she takes it off makes sense why tears came out
Also, Am i the only person who though the dead girl looked a lot like Robin Tunney? Especially 1990s Empire Records, The Craft years when she was still young.
I am impressed that more than one poster here thought that the woman at the beginning was an alien who got replaced because she began to feel sympathy for her human targets. While not impossible, that would be like reasoning backwards having known how the alien played by Scarlett started having emotions and feelings towards the humans. There was nothing else in the film that suggested or supported this interpretation.
There was never any indication in the film that an alien who began to get emotional and thus failed in her job would be killed by their own kind. Scarlett's alien was killed by a forest worker, not her superior. My own interpretation is that the woman at the beginning was human and had been captured by the aliens. If she was an alien, then I don't see the point of removing her clothes. Clothes were apparently not difficult to find and later Scarlett was seen buying them in a shop.
The aliens in the film harvested men to turn them into some delicious gruel, and I see no reason why they should not have abducted women too. Scarlett's character was later shown to be a black alien wearing a woman's skin but it was not clear where the skin came from. It is reasonable to think that the woman was human and had been captured by the motorcycle guys for her clothes and skin. That would be a simpler and more straightforward interpretation.
I thought the skin was manufactured. The way the skin is removed from the innards in their chemical tub looks like it damages it too severely.
shareWhile not impossible, that would be like reasoning backwards
The human skin(+face+hair) is never dead. Even when worn by the alien, it keeps the trace of the memory from past, human life. That's why they cry. Girl undressed by Scarlett cried, Scarlett herself continuously had wet eyes, except when the sexual tension was booming. When people step into the black liquid, all the (sexual? vital?) energy is drown from them and this energy adds up to the tank of black liquid, it fuels "the aliens". All that was left of guys that were trapped by Scarlett, was only 3 skins. Remember, after 3 guys were captured, we see 4 motorists riding around. They just fill out the skin taken from 3 guys with the new black aliens. Alien functions, acts "normal" until it gains new energy. When alien starts to grow conscience, in a combination with human memory, it dies of the lack of the new victims' fuel, energy. It is kind of virus, parasite feeding sexual and vital energy, stealing new shells for multiplying and surviving... Logically, without human or alien inside, the skin will eventually die.
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