The human condition, a tapestry woven from projected desires and the terrifying void of the unknown, finds its most unsettling cinematic cartography in Jonathan Glazer's 2013 masterpiece, Under the Skin. This film is not merely a narrative of alien encounter but a profound schizoanalytic journey into the very fabric of perception, desire, and the inherent alienness that slithers beneath the epidermal surface of socialized being. It forces a confrontation with the horrifying excess that slithers under the skin, challenging the viewer to dismantle the comfortable fictions of human connection and to gaze into the abyss of the uncodified, the unrepresentable, and the perpetually deterritorialized. Through the lens of schizoanalysis, augmented by the existential insights of R.D. Laing and the somatic critiques of Wilhelm Reich, Under the Skin emerges as a cinematic desiring-machine, relentlessly dissecting the Oedipalized structures of human interaction and exposing the molecular flows of desire that animate, and ultimately annihilate, the anthropomorphic facade.
I. The Van as Desiring-Machine: The Stratification of Seduction and the Oedipal Trap
The opening sequences of Under the Skin establish a chillingly efficient desiring-machine: a white van, a solitary female driver (Scarlet Johansson's character, hereafter "Laura"), and the unsuspecting male prey. This initial setup is a meticulously crafted stratification of desire, where the familiar rituals of human seduction are re-engineered for a predatory purpose. Laura, in her human guise, operates within a pre-established Oedipal territoriality—the social script of flirtation, vulnerability, and sexual promise. The men she encounters are already "oedipalized" subjects, their desires channeled into predictable circuits of attraction and conquest. Their online personas, reading like the sides of serial boxes, offer cryptic ingredients that hint at an interiority, yet ultimately serving as mere surfaces for projection. This is the realm where "desire is repressed... because every position of desire, no matter how small, is capable of calling into question the established order" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 16). The men's immediate engagement with Laura speaks to the powerful, yet often unconscious, investment of desire in the promise of sexual gratification, a promise that psychoanalysis, in its "dreary discovery of Oedipus" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 33), has long sought to contain and explain.
Laura's human form, specifically her shapely figure, functions as a potent character armor, a socially constructed facade that elicits specific, predictable responses. The men, in turn, present their own character armor—their confident personas, their flirtatious banter—which are "habitual defense mechanisms [that] harden into a social identity, blocking authentic emotional and desiring flow" (Reich, 1949, p. 150). They project onto Laura an articulate-able idea of her motivation that mystifies any alternative self-interest. This act of projection, of filling the blank space of the unknown with one's own fantasies, is a fundamental mechanism of ontological insecurity, where the self attempts to stabilize its world by imposing meaning onto the unknown. As Laing observes, individuals often engage in "despair[ing] efforts... to put his disintegrated self and world together again" (Laing, 1960, p. 22), a desperate attempt to avoid the terrifying void of the other's true, uncodified being. The men's interpretations are often based on "pragmatic implicatures drawn out by a hearer on the basis of what a speaker’s remarks suggest, as opposed to logical inferences that necessarily follow from what a speaker asserts" (Macagno, 2021, p. 287), highlighting their reliance on social cues rather than a deeper understanding of Laura's true nature.
The van itself, a mobile trap, is a machinic arrangement that facilitates the decoding of flows. It intercepts the everyday flows of urban life and re-routes them into a predatory circuit. The intense, spinning dialectics of flirtation deeper within the van are not genuine dialogue but a programmed sequence, a linearized chain designed to lead to a singular outcome. This process highlights how "the whole of desiring-production is crushed, subjected to the requirements of representation, and to the dreary games of what is representative and represented in representation" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 63). The film thus critiques the "private theater" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 64) of psychoanalysis, which reduces the "productive unconscious" to an "expressive unconscious" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 64), trapping desire within the confines of myth and fantasy, rather than acknowledging its wild, explosive, and machinic nature. The men's online personas are pre-coded representations, offering a superficial glimpse that invites further, yet ultimately destructive, engagement within this Oedipalized framework.
II. The Black Room as Body-without-Organs: Molecular Flows and the Schizophrenic Breakthrough
The black room, with its mirrored floor and the viscous, liquid surface, represents a radical deterritorialization from the stratified world of human interaction. It is a provisional Body-without-Organs (BwO), a "plane of consistency" where the molar organization of the human body and its social meanings are dissolved. The men, in their eager disrobing, are unknowingly participating in their own molecular disintegration. They are drawn by the promise of uninhibited desire, a "flux that overcomes barriers and codes" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 129), yet this flux leads them not to pleasure, but to annihilation.
As the men sink into the viscous, mirrored chamber—the "force field jello"—their bodies are stripped of their muscular armor, the physical manifestations of their socialized selves. This is a violent, yet strangely serene, process of de-stratification, where the body is reduced to its raw, unorganized matter. The shriveling is not merely death; it is a complete decoding of the body, a reduction to pure intensity, a "zero degree" of being where "death is not desired, but what is desired is dead, already dead: images" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 305). Their bodies become raw material, their desiring-production harvested for an unknown purpose, a stark illustration of how "all production is at once desiring-production and social production" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 269), even in its most horrifying, alien forms.
This black room, this BwO, is a space of schizophrenic breakthrough, where the "real and the imaginary cannot coexist by their very nature" (Laing, 1960, p. 86). The viewer is confronted with a reality where something else entirely happens—an event that, while not the opposite of a sexual encounter, provides an outcome that does not fully compute. This narrative rupture mirrors the "breakdowns and breakthroughs" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 11) that characterize the schizophrenic process, forcing a re-evaluation of what constitutes "reality" and "meaning." This "horrifying element," once released, cracks through the story we tell ourselves about ourselves, leaving us terrified and revealing the fragility of our constructed realities. Understanding such complex, non-quantifiable realities often requires "qualitative inquiry" (Eisner, 1993), which moves beyond reductive explanations to embrace the nuanced and often unsettling aspects of experience. The film, in this sense, acts as a "schizoanalytic stroll" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 288), leading the audience to "discover the 'deterritorialized' flows of desire, the flows that have not been reduced to the Oedipal codes and the neuroticized territorialities" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 11).
III. The Neurofibromatosis Man: A Line of Flight and the Rupture of the Molar Pattern
The encounter with the man afflicted with Neurofibromatosis marks a pivotal rupture in the film's machinic operation. Unlike the previous victims, this man is hesitant and skeptical of the kindness of others, his physical difference having already subjected him to a form of social deterritorialization. His "deformed" body is a visible challenge to the anthropomorphic ideal, a crack in the "anthropomorphic molar representation [that] culminates in the very thing that founds it, the ideology of lack" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 269). He embodies a profound ontological insecurity, a "divided self" that has learned to distrust the surface appearances of human interaction. His skepticism prevents him from falling prey to the "pragmatic implicatures" (Macagno, 2021, p. 287) that ensnared others, as his lived experience has taught him to question superficial social cues.
Laura's initial seduction of him follows the established pattern, but her subsequent decision to release him from the black jello chamber is a radical line of flight from her programmed function. This act is a molecular event, a micro-insurrection against the predatory machine she serves. It suggests a nascent critical consciousness emerging within Laura, a moment where the "abstract figures, the schizzes-flows" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 249) beneath the surface of her own operation begin to assert themselves. Her refusal to sacrifice him is a refusal to participate in the "neuroticization" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 327) of desire, a rejection of the "familial-ism that is the ordinary bed and board of psychoanalysis and psychiatry" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 129). This nascent critical consciousness, a key concept in liberation theory (Freire, 1970), allows for a re-evaluation of power structures and a move towards transformation, even for an alien entity.
The insight that this refusal is justified because it is revealed that under Laura's skin is a relatable abjection mirroring the man's birth defected face is crucial. His birth defected face is a mirror to her own terrifying beneath, a shared experience of the abject, the unassimilable. This moment of recognition, however fleeting, is a schizophrenic breakthrough, a glimpse into the "nonhuman in man, his desires and his forces" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 12). It is a moment where the "porous or seeping triangle" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 99) of her predatory system is breached, allowing for a different kind of flow—a flow of empathy, or perhaps, a recognition of shared ontological vulnerability. This is the "process of life flows as they oscillate from one extreme to the other, on a scale of intensity that goes from 0... to the nth power" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 11).
IV. Becoming-Human, Becoming-Alien: Deterritorialization and the Limits of Reterritorialization
Laura's subsequent flight from her handlers and her attempts to "become human" represent a profound deterritorialization from her previous machinic existence. She seeks to integrate into the human world, to experience its mundane pleasures and connections. Her attempt to eat cake, only to spit it out, is a poignant illustration of the difficulty of assimilating the "flows" of human experience. The act of consumption, a fundamental desiring-production, is blocked; her alien physiology cannot process the stratified products of human culture. This highlights the inherent incompatibility between her uncodified being and the molar organization of human life.
Her journey into human intimacy, culminating in the scene with the fourth man, further exposes the limits of this reterritorialization. The attempt at sexual penetration, a quintessential act of human connection and desiring-production, is met with frustration. Her inspection of her genitalia with a lamp is a desperate attempt to understand her own body, her own desiring-machine, within the context of human sexuality. This moment reveals her divided self, the chasm between her assumed human identity and her underlying alien physiology. She is caught in a state of ontological insecurity, unable to reconcile her internal reality with the external expectations of human form and function. She is "petrified into a 'thing', too terror-stricken to become a person" (Laing, 1960, p. 46), her true possibilities "smothered, strangled, murdered" (Laing, 1960, p. 195) by the very attempt to conform. This struggle can be understood through the lens of "conceptual engineering," where she attempts to adopt and preserve human concepts of self and sexuality, but faces an "inscrutability challenge" (Lindauer, 2020, p. 155) in fully grasping and embodying them.
This struggle to "become human" is a complex process of becoming-other, a "becoming-revolutionary" in its radical departure from her original programming. Yet, it is also fraught with the dangers of reterritorialization, where the desire for connection can lead to new forms of constraint. Her vulnerability, stripped of her predatory function, exposes her to the very dangers she once inflicted. The "man of ressentiment" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 10) lurks in the shadows, ready to project his own fears and aggressions onto the perceived "other." Laura's journey underscores the Deleuzian notion that "everything returns or recurs: States, nations, families" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 46), and even the most radical deterritorialization can be met with attempts to re-impose order and meaning. Her inability to fully integrate, to truly "become as one, or even two, but becoming as a hundred thousand" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 269) in the act of love, signifies the profound challenge of bridging the gap between the alien and the human, the uncodified and the stratified.
V. The Final Incineration: The Schizoanalytic Process and the New Earth of the Abject
The film's climax, Laura's brutal attack in the woods, the tearing of her skin, and her subsequent incineration, is not merely a tragic end but a radical schizoanalytic event. The tearing of her skin is the ultimate deterritorialization of her anthropomorphic facade, revealing something terrifying beneath—her true, uncodified, alien form. This revelation is the real of the other, the horrifying element that shatters all projections and comfortable fictions. It is the moment when the "imaginary self breaks in pieces and disappears at contact with reality, yielding its place to the real self" (Laing, 1960, p. 86). The attacker's violent response, his flight, and his act of burning her, are primal reactions to the abject, to that which defies categorization and threatens the stability of his own ego. He cannot tolerate the "schiz" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 129) that separates the familiar from the utterly alien. This reaction aligns with the concept of "vengeful citizens" (Chapman, 2019, p. 1267) who respond with aggression to perceived threats or the unknown, seeking to eliminate what they cannot comprehend or control.
Laura's incineration, while seemingly an act of destruction, can be interpreted as a final, irreversible deterritorialization, a "completion of the process" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 292). Her body, reduced to ash, becomes pure molecular flow, liberated from the constraints of form and representation. This is the "new earth" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 129) that emerges from the "desert of the body without organs" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 129), not a promised land, but "a world created in the process of its tendency, its coming undone, its deterritorialization" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 292). Her death, in this schizoanalytic sense, is a breakthrough, a final shedding of all "Oedipal, familial, and personological references" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 326). She has "ceased being afraid of becoming mad" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 129), embracing the sublime sickness of her own alien being. The ultimate revelation of her true form demands a "qualitative inquiry" (Eisner, 1993) from the viewer, pushing beyond superficial appearances to confront the profound and unclassifiable nature of her being.
Under the Skin ultimately functions as a schizoanalytic machine for the viewer, forcing a confrontation with the always already alienating part of the human condition. It dismantles the "anthropomorphic representation that society imposes on this subject, and with which it represents its own sexuality" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 269). The film's narrative, fragmented and associative, mimics the "schizophrenic out for a walk" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 11), allowing for associative leaps, fragmented observations, and a heightened poetic sensibility that mirrors the molecular flow of desire itself. The film's enduring power lies in its ability to make us feel, viscerally, the terrifying beauty of what lies under the skin, challenging us to embrace the uncodified flows of desire and the inherent alienness that defines our fragmented, desiring selves. It is a call to "tirelessly taking apart egos and their presuppositions; liberating the prepersonal singularities they enclose and repress" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 326), and to confront the horrifying element that, once released, cracks through the story we tell ourselves about ourselves, leaving us terrified.
References
Chapman, T. L. (2019). Vengeful citizens, violent states: A theory of war and revenge [Review of the book Vengeful citizens, violent states: A theory of war and revenge, by R. M. Stein]. Perspectives on Politics, 17(4), 1267–1269.
Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1983). Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and schizophrenia (R. Hurley, M. Seem, & H. R. Lane, Trans.). University of Minnesota Press.
Eisner, E. W. (1993). The enlightened eye: Qualitative inquiry and the enhancement of educational practice. Macmillan Publishing Co.
Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Herder and Herder.
Glazer, J. (Director). (2013). Under the Skin [Film]. A24.
Laing, R. D. (1960). The divided self: An existential study in sanity and madness. Penguin Books.
Lindauer, M. (2020). Conceptual engineering as concept preservation. Ratio, 33(2), 155–162.
Macagno, F. (2021). Argumentation schemes in AI: A literature review. Introduction to the special issue. Argument & Computation, 12(3), 287–302.
Reich, W. (1949). Character analysis (T. P. Wolfe, Trans.). Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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