The minimalist approach and lack of explicit explanations as to what's going on in Under the Skin certainly led to a lot of frustration from viewers who were expecting something more mainstream - and given that Scarlett Johansson is its star, it's perhaps not surprising that some were put off by the art house flavour. For others, the slow, atmospheric pace and shifts in mood made it one of the best films of the year so far. You'd be forgiven for questioning why Under the Skin is on a list of visually stunning films if all you'd seen were the scenes in which Johansson drives around the streets of Scotland looking for male prey - filmed with hidden cameras to capture the responses of unsuspecting members of the public, the image is often crude and grainy. This only makes the contrast to the moments in the mysterious void all the more striking and otherworldly, while the final scene - as Johansson's alien grasps with her identity in a windswept forest - sticks in the mind well after the film has finished.
