Spider

David Cronenberg's foray into drama ever since, I think, this became a possibility for him, has been rife with great films. EASTERN PROMISES, which was the first film of his I saw, stood as one of the best films I'd ever seen at the time (which was, admittedly, very early in my exposure to cinema). But after watching many of his other dramatic films of this period, I have found that each pleased me more than the last. The same is true, now, for SPIDER, a film about a schizophrenic man attempting to uncover his past. The man, who goes by Spider (Ralph Fiennes), is now living in a sort of halfway home. There's a couple of other oddballs around, an an elderly matron figure. Spider takes long meandering walks about town, puts weird little webs around his room made of string, and generally doesn't say anything very intelligible. In flashbacks we see Spider as a child, under two parents whom he thinks are unhappy and dislike each other. What's astonishing about SPIDER is the craft at work, and the deviousness of Cronenberg's direction as we see the craziness of Spider's mind, and how small notions of his grow to control his life. It's these small notions, these small ideas about the way things are, that ultimately decide who Spider will be, and how he will act. Keeping all of these ideas on a pillar, or, on a level at which we can take them seriously, are Ralph Fiennes' performance, a creepy Gabriel Byrne as his father, and Cronenberg's sad, dirty cities.

★★★★★ out of Five