Monday, January 18, 2010

Spider 2002

*David Cronenberg*93m*

At 98 minutes it's a gripping enough movie with more than a quorum of gore. As an insight into mental illness with or without traumatic origins, I don't think it rises much above A Beautiful Mind.Perhaps it is authentic in the sense of portraying a mind trapped into revolving eternally around a single obsession. Unusual is that he finally sees through himself. It is too bleak for a movie and not bleak enough to correspond to the realities.

As Roger Ebert says, there is no growth, no transcendance. But maybe the concluding insight into his own failing is a growth, even a remarkable one, given the bleak prognosis in such cases.
Roger Ebert's review

2 comments:

Pankaj said...

I didnt find A Beautiful Mind particularly insightful in its depiction of mental illness. It was obviously made for a mainstream audience which knew nothing of mental illness, and wanted to see it through a feel good lens. 12th park avenue was a lot more authentic in its depiction of how a family around a patient copes.

S M Rana said...

@Pankaj

I saw this film-Spider- because a rather precocious 27 year old Indian American Sikh who wishes to remain undefined to the extent of even with-holding his or her gender and styles himself Indian Idiot (H.W.) suggested it.

Park Avenue was certainly more insightful than either of these two films and the performance by Konkona was really good.