A sci-fi film, based on Michel Faber’s novel and set in Glasgow, follows Scarlet Johansson as a nameless alien recently arrived on earth to prey on men and harvest their organs. The discussion considers whether Johansson’s character offers an outsider’s view of neurotypicality that is close to that of autism, looking on at a world of perplexing social rituals of seduction and consumption, or whether a suggested affinity between autism and a character who is alien is problematic. Also debated are the topics of posthumanism, feminist alien abduction of the male species, the film’s ethnographic style of filming ‘humankind’, Glasgow and white working-class culture, compassion between male characters, and the exploration of sexuality and gender as alien concepts.
Discussants: Georgia Kumari Bradburn, Janet Harbord, David Hartley, John-James Laidlow, Alex Widdowson.
Email us your insights at: cinemautism@gmail.com
50th Episode Special
The Revenant (2015) dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu
Voice (2023) dir. Ana Hjort Guttu
Doctor Who: The Tenth Planet (1966) dir. Derek Martinus (Part Two)
Doctor Who: The Tenth Planet (1966) dir. by Derek Martinus (Part One)
Isaac Julien: What Freedom is to Me (2023), TATE Britain Exhibition.
Live Event Preview: Still Lives (2023) at The Garden Cinema
Blade Runner (1982) dir. Ridley Scott
Raw (2016)
ET: The Extra Terrestrial (1982) with Sam Chown-Ahern
Harold & Maude (1971) dir. Hal Ashby, with Andrew Brenner
Tomboy (2011) dir. Celine Sciamma with Sophie Broadgate
Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) dir. Chantal Akerman
The Falls (1980) dir. Peter Greenaway
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010) dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Special Episode: Relaxed Screenings with Maggi Hurt (BFI)
The Secret Garden (1993) dir. Agnieszka Holland with Sophia Rose O’Rourke
Scanners (1981) dir. David Cronenberg
Pierrot le Fou (1965) dir Jean-Luc Godard
Sayonara CP (1972) dir. Kazuo Hara with Richard Butchins
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