Extra Credit: Under the Skin

Scarlett Johansson is an alien life form entrusted with the duty of collecting human skins.  These skins are assumed to be used for other alien life forms to come and live on Earth.  She does this by seducing men walking alone on the side of the road and offering to give them a ride to their destination.  She then convinces them to come home with her, where she lures them into a tank for cultivation.  However, at some point along the way, she stumbles across a man with elephantiasis and sympathizes with him.  She sets him free, abandons her van, and walks along the Scottish countryside determined to live the life of a normal human being.  She happens across a nice gentleman who takes her into his home and becomes infatuated with her.  Scarlett is especially tentative to trust this man, seeing as she seduced people to kill them.  During her time here, Scarlett realizes her wrongdoing in her seductive acts, and she refrains from speaking much at all.  She also becomes fascinated with the skin she is in and spends a lot of time inspecting herself in the mirror.  The man who takes her in eventually gets around to having sex with Scarlett and she, confused by the human anatomy, stops the procreation at the point of penetration and is seen looking longingly into the window.  In the morning, she runs away from the nice man and travels deep into the woods where she runs into a logger.  They are the only two in the woods.  They go their separate ways and Scarlett finds a shelter for hikers.  The logger finds her here and tries to touch her sexually.  Scarlett freaks out and runs away.  The logger chases her and finally tackles her down.  In ripping off her clothes, the logger rips off Scarlett's skin.  He freaks out and runs away.  The tears are very noticeable, and the alien then proceeds to peel all of her skin off, revealing her true form.  She sits there and inspects her faux face.  The logger returns, pours gasoline on the exposed alien, and sets her on fire. Scarlett tries to escape, but eventually burns to death in the snow.
I thought this movie was too odd for my personal taste, and the violins provided an overwhelming amount of tension, and I sat uncomfortably for the duration of the movie.  The movie also uses a lot of instances of repetition and self-reflection, making for a very slow-moving film that dragged at times.  Repetition includes the scenes of Scarlett driving around and picking up men, which attributed to a good chunk of the film.  Her successes and failures day in and day out clearly display a prolonged passage of time (11:44-1:05:08).  There were also a lot of scenes flaunting the landscapes of Scotland and, while they were beautiful, also dragged longer than they should have in my opinion (1:06:56 - 1:07:21).  I did enjoy the film's contrast between the violins and dead silence (34:57 - 38:38).  I didn't know which was more unsettling, but the anticipation was palpable, proving to be incredible effective.  I would say this part was my favorite scene.  The subtle clues of Scarlett's intentions are slowly revealed to the audience, providing time for us to theorize as to what exactly is happening.  There were a lot of dramatic uses of jump cuts in the movie, especially between picking up the men and actually taking them back to her lair, especially at (33:53).