Spider - 2002 movie (Fiennes, Cronenberg)

[Kyriakos]

Spider is a 2002 movie directed by Cronenberg and with Ralph Fiennes in the role of its protagonist. It is based on the book by the same name by Patrick McGrath, who wrote the script for the movie adaptation as well.

I absolutely loved this film. It is about the attempt of the protagonist, nicknamed "Spider" (supposedly by his mother) to piece together his strange recollections of his traumatic childhood. In the beginning of the movie Spider is released from a mental institution, to live at a special housing apartment-block that serves as the intermediate ground to being entirely evaluated as able to return to society. It so happens though that this establishment is very near where he spent his childhood in east London, and inevitably he starts reliving the fragmentary memories.

I am of the view that this is the most interesting film i have seen by now. Fiennes is excellent in depicting the main character's isolation and acute introversion. The cinematography is fittingly gloomy. Gabriel Byrne, who is cast as Spider's father that appears in his flashbacks, is also very good in the role.

I wanted to write a lot more about this film, but did not want to risk spoiling it for those of you who have not seen it. It is a complicated story, like a spider's web it expands even after you have stopped watching it.
I tried to read the book as well, but was put off by some of its language, and also the fact that it seems to be a bit different from the movie in its focuses.

-Has anyone else seen this movie? What did you think of it?

 

[Kyriakos]

No one else has seen it?

It is a very gloomy film, and not for everyone. Personally i found it to be quite interesting though

 

[Antilogic]

Nooooope!

(Not me, at least.)

 

[Perfection]

You got put off by a book because it had swears?

 

[Kyriakos]

The movie presents Spider in a different light than the book does. For starters in the movie Spider is mostly silent. The book, in contrast, is written by him in the first person.

It does seem that Cronenberg altered the focus considerably, despite the aforementioned fact that the writer of the book created the screenplay of the movie.

 

[Perfection]

So that and swears? I just find it odd that you'd have an issue with swears and all.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Interesting that this gets moved to A&E but not say general music or movie threads...

Anyway - I have a theory regarding the sense of the whole thing, but am far from sure weather I am getting it.
But to explain why, I am going to retell half of the movie - so spoiler alert

Spoiler :

At first I thought: Why is he a witness of so many things he can not possibly have actually witnessed? From all the movie tells, he was a good boy staying home - not a spy with supernatural skills who is one with the shadows and has as his eyes everywhere his farther or mother goes.
But with time, I realized that it didn't matter what the boy/man exactly witnessed. Rather I came to view the grown man witnessing als those happenings as a metaphor of his feelings. That is being a grown man, able to intervene, to change things, but then again being absolutely helpless as all those happenings took place in the past. Hence we have a grown man condemned to merely watch, to witness and record what he witnesses on paper (his notebook as seen in the movie) and prepare those recordings with continuous mumbling. A man grown, but trapped in his childhood and with it trapped in the helplessness of his childhood.
Well - and then came one of the two WTH scenes of the movie (his mother is killed by his father) and my bets proved right, but also off as I did not foresee the intense motive of this whole mind game the protagonist plays with himself.
Though why did he then say sorry to her grave in this one scene? I suppose another figment of the grown mans immigration, as he could not possibly have witnessed it - at least that was my assumption.
So much for my POV up to when he killed his new mother, only to suddenly have killed his real mother...
WTH?
There was a scene where as a boy he brushed the hair of his mom, in a later scene his father talked about how he was without lads. Meanwhile, his relationship to his father is portrayed quit distanced contentiously. So supposedly, he was not only close, but fixated on his mother. She was the only person to relate to. Moreover, he showed clear signs of jealousness when his father made out with his mother in view of his room window.
But how does this make him kill his mother? Did her sexual relationship to his father make here a whore in his eyes, equating here to the actual "light" girl he saw in the pup when going to get his father? Even more, did his mother roam the street with his father, drunk, to satisfy him. A fallen angel of his?
That is the best I came up with so far.
What are your thoughts Kyriakos?

 

[Kyriakos]

Thank you for your interesting post Sill

Spoiler :

I agree with your assumptions. It does seem impossible for Spider to have any sort of correct memory of the main events in his past. I too was very suprised when his father in his memory just killed his mother and then the other woman moved into the house. It is useful to note, though, that both his mother, and the other woman, are played by the same actress! (which i did not notice at first) It does seem highly likely that Spider did what you mentioned, that is he somehow split the image of his mother into two, following the sexual scene he witnessed of her and his father. So one image of his mother remained something pure to his eyes, while the other got morphed into a sort of "tart" as she is described in the movie.
So the pieces of the puzzle never fit, as happens in the movie too with an actual puzzle Spider is trying to build. He just has no ability to see the truth, that he killed his own mother and not some tart which had replaced her. It really is a very sad story...

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Spoiler :

It is useful to note, though, that both his mother, and the other woman, are played by the same actress!

Useful? That is quit a revelation! I had no idea, they looked exceedingly different to me.
Well I feel now like understanding the movie
Well it is sad - but it also makes the main character a clear lunatic.
What I find more interesting his how this extreme case serves to highlight tendencies many young boys may experience. I myself never had anything of the sort, but with my oldest brother my parents tried a open approach regarding sexuality - one day they just told him what they did, how it worked. He wasn't scared for life or anything, but at the time was literally shocked and would go tell neighbors to reveal the - as he perceived - shocking secret of his parents. After that, my parents didn't bother with explaining sexuality to me and my other big but less older brother. Though there also was really no need to.