Spider
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Movie Reviews of Spider
Movie Review: Touching and Disturbing
Summary: 4 Stars
If Samuel Beckett himself had written and directed this film, I would not have been surprised. I would qualify that statement by saying that Beckett probably would not have considered it one of his best.While the film is undeniably powerful, and Fiennes' performance deserves an Oscar, there is a certain malaise (perhaps deliberate) about it which reveals a certain laziness in direction. "Spider" the novel is as distant from "Spider" the film as "The Metamorphosis" is from "Kafka" starring Jeremy Irons.
Fiennes' character, Spider, is borderline insane. He has one foot in reality and one foot in his horrific memories of a sordid, miserable, neglected and misunderstood youth. The best parts of the film are the scenes in which Spider stands outside the scenes of his past, reciting verbatim the dialogue between his father, mother, and his repulsive mistress. The ugly reality of insanity is presented here with no romantic embellishment; Spider is deranged, and does not understand the motives behind his own actions. Awash in misery, the mood of each scene is more or less consistent: tragedy and confusion. The only parts which even approach humor consist of Spider's entrance to the madhouse.
We feel sympathy for Spider, but for practically no one else in the film (except at the end, which reveals the somewhat predictable truth behind the murder of his mother.) Cronenberg tried a little to hard to shove the viewer's face in every nasty form of human behavior: alcoholism, degenerate sexual encounters (between his father and his real or unreal mistress), domestic abuse, etc. The mood is almost TOO much Beckett.
Nonetheless, this is a film that deserves to be watched, if only for some scattered scenes and am ambiance of degeneration I have rarely seen in a film. Watch especially for the opening, with Spider stepping off a train. Not a masterpiece, but a worthy curiosity.
Movie Review: An impressionistic look at mental illness
Summary: 4 Stars
After all these years, Cronenberg is still an artist. He's made another low-budget, sure-to-bomb-at-the-box-office movie that he just HAD to make. His career suffers a little, but the audience benefits.With a great script (by the author of the novel) and Ralph Fiennes already attached to it, Cronenberg couldn't say no. Fiennes is amazing, playing what turns out to be a pantomime role --- he hardly speaks. He conveys everything through gestures, mumbling, and his eyes. The rest of the cast is just as good.
The pace might put you off, but you can't really judge this film until you've seen it twice. It's subtle movie. The final moments bring it all together in a way that makes the second viewing much more satisfying.
The Cronenberg audio track is also very good. The director explains the movie as it goes along. This would be a bad idea if the story was simple, but it isn't. He explains, for example, that he didn't want this to be a clinical examination of schizophrenia, so he didn't bother to get every detail of that particular mental disorder correct. Once you take the movie for what it is --- concise, light on special effects, and impressionistic --- it turns into a very rewarding experience.
Even the length is impressive. Rather than take the bloated approach of a Oscar-ready Hollywood "mentally ill guy" movie, he sticks to his horror-film roots and keeps it down to an hour and a half.
The only real weakness is the lack of small touches, the memorable moments that turn a good movie into a great one. The "quickie in the tunnel," for example, is unforgettable. Cronenberg should have added more of these small shocks and simple visual effects to keep the audience on their toes.
Movie Review: Memories collect like dead flies
Summary: 4 Stars
This psychological thriller feels like an endurance test. Cronie traps you in his web and lets you dangle hopelessly. Your brain slowly turns to mush as he grinds down your power of perception. Some might initially feel irritated with his warped little subterfuge, but what did you expect? THIS IS CRONENBURG!!
Ralph Fiennes stars as Spider, an unstable man released from a mental institute in order to live in a halfway house. Spider walks very slowly and his speech is often hard to decipher. This made me wonder what was done to him in that insane asylum. Nothing says I'm sorry like a free pass out of the nuthouse.
Anyway, Spider's new dwelling just happens to be near the place where he grew up. He had a traumatic and mysterious childhood, and he never had the chance to piece some questions together.
Like one huge question--what happened to his mom? Daddy replaced her with the local barfly as his mother disappeared without a trace.
You are dragged along on this quest for truth in surreal fashion. Pieces of his memory and imagination distort this journey. I totally love Cronenburg's distinctive style. He never reveals too much too soon, always keeps you guessing. This story seems hopelessly complex until you are able to break it down to its basic elements. After I figured out what was going on, I actually had to rewatch a few scenes in order to fully grasp everything. Cronie loves to get inside your head.
Movie Review: Inside Spider's head
Summary: 4 Stars
That is exactly how you will feel after watching Cronenberg's latest, and surprisingly most accessible work. Compared to other C. material, Spider is very simple in its plot but extremely complex in execution. Notice the lack of eye contact and complete shame throughout the entire life of Spider after a significant event. As a boy he can stare you straight in the face and call you a "murderer" but as an adult he has succumbed to muttering and hiding things in his pockets.Enough cannot be said of Fiennes and Richardson, both absolutely perfect in their roles.
Anyone who follows Cronenberg knows it will not be an easy watch, and sometimes the reward is great ( Dead Ringers, Existenz,Videodrome, The Fly) and sometimes not as great as you hope ( M.Butterfly, Crash, Naked Lunch) but the viewing is always a pleasure. The music, art direction, pacing and colors of a C. film are always impressive and worth traveling to see, each piece is a work of art, and Spider is definitely that.
As with every C. exercise, don't try to make sense of Spider's history, we probably never saw the real history. His mind is so preoccupied with schizophrenia that what the film lays out as an explaination may not really be, this may be frustrating for some, as it was in "Existenz" but here it is not. Because of the subject matter, just revel in the perfect acting and direction .
Movie Review: The mind is the most fragile organ of them all
Summary: 4 Stars
A simple, very simple film. A child loses his mother who is killed by his own father and replaced by another woman. He eventually kills this substitute as a vengeance but also as an act of justice for himself and maybe the mother he is remembering in his empty mind. He feels like a spider in the middle of its cobweb, but also like the very prey of the spider in that very centre of that very cobweb. He will be taken away to some mental hospital and will come back a long long time later and he will revisit the scene of his crime and he will start all over again just to revive his past and what he lost a long time ago, his mother who is probably still alive in his mind, his memory. And he will be taken away again, this time for good. Sad vision of these men who are the prey of the world and become vultures because they are punished for what they did instead of being understood or just even being prevented from running into a situation of this type. Killing is a catching disease for one and an incurable disease for two. Cronenberg is the bleakest pessimist of them all and there is no escape from his fatal fate, his lethal death, his morbid moribund sense of black dis-humor that makes you feel as if you had eaten some live eel or snake, head, tail and venom alike.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine & University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne