Spider

Imagine your mind is a vast empty cavern with drawers in the walls where everything is kept in catalogued order. Now imagine a spider’s web built in that same cavern that stretches from wall to wall to ceiling to floor; its tangled strands confusing the order of everything so you don’t know which way is which. And finally, imagine you are caught in the centre of that web and are hanging, caught forever with no way of knowing which way is up.

This is how Spider lives. Forever enmeshed in his fantasies and his memories and never knowing what is real, what has actually happened in his life or what is truth. David Cronenberg has directed some truly exemplary theatre before, but in Spider he has created a magnificent tangled miasma of one man’s struggle with mental illness and the world around him. Supported by an incredible cast, Cronenberg has delved deep into the psyche of a very disturbed man and taken us all along for the ride. And it’s not a very pretty one...

Spider is Dennis Cleg, a man whom we learn is being reintegrated into society after many years in a hospital for the mentally unwell. Arriving at a halfway house, he is soon surrounded by the noises and confusion of others of his kind and even makes some acquaintances. However, all is not well with Spider and in the ongoing days his memories of growing up in the same neighbourhood as the halfway house come back more and more heavily. Soon it is apparent that not all of Spider’s memories are true, nor are they clear and precise and finally we learn of the awful reason why Spider was in a mental institution in the first place.

"What have you done?"

Wringing intense performances from his stars, Cronenberg has built an intricate network of storylines and memories interweaving with Spider’s actual reality. Although complicated, Spider’s disjointed memories are followed easily enough as we go with him into the deepest recesses of his dark mind. Granted this film will make a lot more sense the second time around; in our initial viewing the confusion we feel contributes to the claustrophobic disorder that Spider feels and immerses us cleverly into his tortured mind.

Ralph Fiennes is yet again Oscar material as Spider, bringing us forcefully into his grey world of fantastical memories with Miranda Richardson perfect in three roles, proving she too is an extraordinary talent. Gabriel Byrne also delivers a notable performance as Spider’s father and together the three form Spider’s family; each with their own unique character. This isn’t a pretty film by any stretch of the word, but it is a hauntingly horrifying excursion into the deepest depths of the mind to uncover what lies beneath.

Whilst in cinemas up until just recently, Spider has made the leap to DVD quite well. The colour palette is very reserved, being such a monumentally dark film, but those that do appear are crisp and even. Shadow detail, so very important in this film, is exacting and well portrayed. Blacks are true to life and the night shots are all cleverly lit and clear.

Although the cinemas have barely finished with it, the film does contain some film artefacts. Whilst nothing major, they do add to the graininess of Spider’s life and his washed out world, so they are unobtrusive. Some absolutely awesome computer images are used in the opening titles that blew me away when I saw them on the big screen. Using natural images of mould, flaking paint, water stained concrete and various other images of urban decay, Rorschach inkblots have been created to bridge Spider’s world with our own. Very impressive stuff adding to the allover great transfer.

Deliciously delivered in Dolby Digital 5.1, the audio content of this picture is superb. Garbled dialogue and confused babbling all comes across cleanly while the regular dialogue is quite clear and well intoned. Sound effects are distinct and, whilst used sparingly, are perfectly fitting.

Academy award winner Howard Shore (Lord of the Rings) has scored the film and it’s simply stunning, with plenty of morose vibes that set the scene perfectly. He immerses us in Spider’s world with haunting and lyrical overtones that accompany Spider’s reality and Spider’s false memories beautifully.

Another intricate web has been spun here in the abundance of treasures delivered in the extras section. Firstly, the mildly animated menus have been created with some pleasing creepiness in their execution. Nicely rendered images in each sub-section add well to the overall atmosphere of the film. There’s also a nice jacket picture when you hit STOP on your remote.

Due to the nature of this film, certainly a little more explanation might be required for some viewers and happily this is given in three featurettes. Please be warned though, that these do contain spoilers so it is recommended you watch the film first.

The first of these featurettes is In the Beginning: How Spider Came to Be and runs for 8:09. It includes discussions of how the script was created and how the cast and crew came together. Some edited interviews with David Cronenberg, Catherine Bailey (the producer) and Miranda Richardson are included and the story of how the film finally got made is quite sensational.

Second up is Weaving the Web: The Making of Spider, which runs for 9:10. This contains some nice insights into the making of, plus further edits of interviews that pop up elsewhere with Cronenberg, Richardson, Ralph Fiennes, Lynn Redgrave and writer Patrick McGrath.

Lastly, Caught in Spider’s Web: The Cast runs for 12:22 and is basically the cast summing up their roles, experiences on set and such. Gabriel Byrne features in this one, along with Fiennes and Richardson.

Filmographies come next and there are six of these, including the writer and director. It's quite interesting to look over some of the immense bodies of work these folks have done. Four trailers are included next and each one is a worthy picture in its own right. Spider, of course, with Adaptation, Punch-Drunk Love and The Devil’s Backbone.

And finally, one last note about the director’s commentary. Cronenberg is a well respected and well loved director and he does deliver some nice facts about production, clues to the storyline and some technical stuff, however he does repeat himself a little from the extras interviews. He obviously has a deep affection for his film and rightly so, and has a lot to say about it, which makes this one man commentary actually a pretty good one. The one man-ners, I find, are usually pretty boring, but Cronenberg is articulate and interesting and even leaves pauses for information to sink in (I doubt this is intentional, he’s just watching the movie).

A nice package of extras truly adds some further depth to this already deep film and does contribute a great deal to the film experience.

Spider is truly a work of art. Some beautiful photography brings the dingy streets of Spider’s world to stark grey life and saturates us in the darkness of Spider’s existence. Cleverly made in itself to resemble a spider’s web, there are also images throughout that amplify this feeling (a jigsaw puzzle that unnervingly won’t go together, a shattered window and so on). Whilst certainly not to everyone's tastes, Cronenberg has achieved a lyrical masterpiece of cinema here, regardless of the grimy characters and doomed milieu, making Spider a film that will stay with you, perhaps even longer than you want it to. Excellent.