Scarlett Johansson was naked at the beginning of the film. With the help of the motorcycle man, he obtained a set of women's coats, and then learned other women to wear lipstick. Here it can be seen that she has obtained the outermost layer of human skin: "clothing".
Our realistic society teaches us to judge a person by appearance and evaluate a person by clothing taste. Even when Scarlett was still inhuman at the beginning of the film, she could walk in the crowd with only a thin coat.
Then she learned the second layer of human skin: facial expressions. The expression is the outward (present) emotion. She learned to smile and talk to the men on the roadside. Although her heart was empty, her hypocritical expression made her have no flaws in direct communication with people.
At this time, she has become a complete person in social relations.
Then she met a family who disappeared into the sea one after another, but she just captured her prey indifferently: an amateur diver. I have to insert a sentence here. In this film, the image of water is just as important. The sea is a natural trapper just like Scarlett. It uses human emotions and desires to draw people into the abyss of nature one by one. Including the men trapped by Scarlett in the film are also immersed in the liquid like the bottom of the sea. And what is this liquid? Is it desire? Is it sin? I think neither.
Looking backward, Scarlett obtained skin and flesh from different prey... She finally became a complete person in the physiological sense.
When she became a human being socially and physically, her psychology was mismatched and empty. Until she met a very ugly man. He is very inferior, and it is precisely because of his extreme inferiority that he is extremely concerned about his existence. When Scarlett imagined tempting other men into her quagmire, she was surprised to find that in this man, she realized something she had never realized before: What is "I"? She began to look in the mirror to observe her appearance. From this moment on, she began to shape herself from the inside naturally.
So far, I think that the ocean that imprisons men is not just a symbol of desire or sin, but her "sea of consciousness" or "sea of subconsciousness". When she wandered on the surface of the "Sea of Consciousness", the bottom of the sea had quietly squeezed those others out. For better or worse, they all became part of her. The reason why she let go of the ugly man is also because after realizing the existence of "I", she no longer blindly constructs her consciousness with the image of others.
She began to try to understand human preferences, eating cakes, taking the bus, and living with men. Just when she thought she had become a real person from the outside and inside, ready to have sex with a man, she found that she was still incomplete. She shone the light on her lower body in fear, and then left. I think what she lacks here is "love". Although she has become a person from appearance to consciousness, she still has not learned to love. Why? Because none of the men who fit into her consciousness have this ability.
In other words, the film is like a metaphorical hypothesis that whether a person with a shell can learn to become a complete person with the ability to love in human society. The answer is no. Because there are too many hollow flesh, too many decorated desires flood human society.
At the end of the film, Scarlett, who longs for adulthood, is violently abused by the hypocritical and ugly rangers. In front of the lined forest, the fragile skin is pulled down, revealing the oily dark body. Petroleum is the product of how many trees planted on the ground rot and merge together, just like how much individual consciousness has gathered and imitated the image of others assimilated. And this body finally burned on the snow, and the forest watched silently, leaving only ash-like white snow constantly falling from the sky.
ps. Do you ask what the motorcycle man symbolizes? I haven't figured it out yet, maybe you can find some clues by listing his behavior.
As soon as I read the English version, there will definitely be some mistakes and omissions. Welcome to point out or discuss new ideas with me.
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