WEEK TWO (Oct 11): MEDICAL ISSUES
It's 1986, and David Cronenberg was finally on top of the world, thanks to
The Fly. That film was a rare triple threat: it was a remake that vastly improved upon the original, it sacrificed none of the artistic pursuits that Cronenberg was known for, ensuring strong critical acclaim, and it was a crowd-pleasing blockbuster with the grosses to prove it. That a film that featured, among other things, Geena Davis giving birth to a maggot would wind up impressing everyone outside of the 20 people who actually saw
Videodrome in a theater is nothing short of impossible, but that's the 80s for you. Naturally, Cronenberg followed
The Fly with a film that's nothing like
The Fly at all, and while that doesn't necessarily have to bad news for people new to Cronenberg thanks to that film, a film about twin gynecologists losing their sense of individuality that was light on the gore and heavy on the bleakness was not, as they say, good for repeat business.
I imagine that for even fans of Cronenberg's work up to that point,
Dead Ringers was a really tough one to figure out, as it bore few easy comparisons to his previous films. Sure, it was shot in Ontario, like the rest of them, Howard Shore brought his considerable talents as a composer yet again, and it definitely dealt with the horror of the body, but this felt very different this time around. Gone were the genre elements that Cronenberg had so frequently mutated to his own purposes, and in their place laid an intense character study that felt more violent and more uncompromising than anything that came before. No one should go into
Dead Ringers with the expectation that they'll enjoy themselves, because there's no way you will.
What
Dead Ringers completely lacks for entertainment value, it more than makes up for in intellectual content, and for my money, it's Cronenberg's richest film in that regard. A film that tackles themes of identity, how we relate to other human beings, emotional dependency, and other aspects of the human experience that we tend to freeze up on are explored at great lengths throughout this film, through the rather unique lens of what all of that means to two people that go to great lengths to appear as one entity. It's the kind of film where every line of dialogue is so loaded with double- and triple-meanings that it's a miracle that it never feels that obvious when a line like "I'm one of the Mantle twins" isn't just a mere declarative statement.
Perhaps the one thing that surprises me the most is that I don't think I'd be able to single out one element of the film as being more remarkable than another. I could go on and on about how wonderful Jeremy Irons is in both roles, or how Genevieve Bujold miraculously matches Irons' work, or how effortless Cronenberg's direction appears to be, or about a dozen or so more exemplary elements, but the most impressive thing of all is how integral and thoughtful every element of the film turns out to be. As I've read it, Cronenberg had been trying to get this film made since around the same time when he finally broke through to the mainstream (somewhat) with
Scanners, but the remarkable amount of thought and care put into every frame of the film makes it seem like it had been in the works for twice as long. It's a highlight even for a career that's not lacking for them.
Sanity check: Even as I grew fearful of what would happen afterward after reaching the lowest of lows with
Anatomy, the movies afterward propelled themselves so far away from that film that I'm safe to say I've completely forgotten about watching it. That's some great news there!
We're going into quite a wild week here with the focus on female-fronted horror films, and while it remains to be seen if one of the films I had posted about will actually be available to me in time, it always pays to be prepared for such events. Speaking of:
Next film: May was on my list for last year, but it was bumped due to a scheduling error that I didn't even realize until I was already well into the marathon. I think I owe it to myself to fix this once and for all.
