vernon film society
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SPIDERCountry: France/Canada/UK Winner of the Toronto - City Award for Best Canadian Feature Film - 2002 Toronto International Film Festival
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| The film begins as Dennis “Spider” Cleg (Fiennes, SUNSHINE, RED DRAGON) is released to a London halfway house after years in a mental institution. A mumbling, paranoid ball of nerves, Spider is immediately suspicious of Mrs. Wilkinson (Lynn Redgrave, GODS AND MONSTERS, SHINE), the woman who runs the house. As he begins to explore his new surroundings, Spider recalls episodes from his childhood, when a seriously grim confrontation between his philandering father (Gabriel Byrne, THE USUAL SUSPECTS) and loving mother (Miranda Richardson, SLEEPY HOLLOW, THE CRYING GAME) threw the young boy into a delusional spiral. In an astounding, deeply internalized lead performance, Fiennes plays Spider as a tormented soul whose every thought must wind its way through the deep and complicated recesses of his contorted mind. The always adept Richardson also shines in three different roles, playing amalgams of all the women in Spider’s distorted life. With Peter Suschitzky’s evocatively creepy cinematography and Howard Shore’s intensely appropriate score contributing to a beautifully sustained mood of grimness and dread, Cronenberg has crafted an extremely accomplished film that could well stand as his finest work to date.
"Cronenberg has pulled off a richly visual feat of the imagination that ranks among his finest achievements and draws full measure of the talent and skill of Miranda Richardson (in a breathtaking dual portrayal), Gabriel Byrne, Lynn Redgrave and John Neville as well as Fiennes" - Los Angeles Times “Something very close to a masterstroke, as truthful and affecting a depiction of mental illness as ever put to film.” – Peter Howell, The Toronto Star |
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David Cronenberg (EXISTENZ, CRASH), Canada’s dark
prince of the psycho-sexual thriller, returns with the
decidedly Kafkaesque SPIDER, a chillingly austere portrait
of madness that drew rave reviews at both the Cannes
and Toronto International Film Festivals. Featuring
some of the filmmaker’s most masterfully controlled
direction to date, as well as pitch-perfect performances
from a remarkable cast and a truly mesmerizing turn
from Ralph Fiennes, SPIDER spins an intricate web of
intrigue in which nothing is what it seems and reality,
dream and flashback seamlessly merge into one.