 |
| From http://www.impawards.com/2000/posters/cell_ver5.jpg |
Director: Tarsem Singh
Screenplay: Mark Protosevich
Cast: Jennifer Lopez (as Dr.
Catherine Deane); Vincent D'Onofrio (as Carl Rudolph Stargher); Vince Vaughn
(as Special Agent Peter Novak); Jake Weber (as Special Agent Gordon Ramsey);
Dylan Baker (as Henry West); Marianne Jean-Baptiste (as Dr. Miriam Kent)
Synopsis: In the future, a research facility has developed the
ability for therapists to enter their patients' sub consciousness, useful
especially to communicate to coma patients. The FBI request their facility to
enter the head of recently captured and comatose serial killer Carl Rudolph
Stargher (D'Onofrio), to find where
his next victim is before she dies. Therapist Dr. Catherine Deane (Lopez) selects herself to enter his
nightmarish psyche as FBI agent Peter Novak (Vaughn) watches on.
I unfairly dismissed Tarsem Singh once as proving when
elaborate images aren't enough in cinema, without any sense of connection to
make them work as a whole, but here with The
Cell, this is not necessarily the case. Even as a person obsessed with
style, I find myself only enamoured with movies that have an inbuilt sense of
the environments being fleshed out with a distinct personality to them.
Revisiting The Cell, it's a case
that Singh is betrayed by the scripts
more than any problems with his directorial skills, and I say this with an
admiration for The Cell despite its
flaws. The story about a scientific
technique that allows one to enter dreams/the subconscious is immediately going
to interest me, and it still stands out strongly despite the crippling flaw
that prevents the film from being more then fascinating, that it's the clichéd
serial killer crime movie at the end of the day. The film struggles between its
premise and this, swathed in the post-Seven
(1995) influence in its grubby, dark tone. The performances are also
varying. Lopez is okay in the lead
only, and Vaughn is dangerously close
to the gruff cop stereotype, having Gil Grissom 's stubble pre-CSI,
and its only when The Cell
takes risk that they are able to try a little harder.
 |
| From http://screenmusings.org/movie/blu-ray/The-Cell/images/The-Cell-482.jpg |
The plot does throw up one
inspired, if very controversial idea, as a crime thriller that forces you to
think of real life for once. Boldly, though it may put off many viewers, it
suggests that even if Stargher is a killer of women who bleaches their corpses,
and then dangles himself over them on hooks masturbating, he is still the
product of cruelty and sadism, Deane finding his inner child and the various
torments replayed in front of her as she travels further into his mind. Many
will find this offensive, under the belief a serial killer would be welcomed on
the nearest electric chair instead, but forcing the viewer to ask if
environmental influence or the psyche of a person could make them into a Jeffrey Dahmer is something few horror
films manage to do. Some of the content is exceptionally heavy handed, such as
the reference to an Christian baptism in a lake that isn't necessarily
anti-religious but an attempt to link an obsession with drowning and water Stargher
has.
 |
| From http://www.movpins.com/big/MV5BMTgzODMwMDA0MV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMzE1M DQ1NA/still-of-jennifer-lopez-and-vincent-donofrio-in-the-cell-(2000)-large-picture.jpg |
Most of it, even if exaggerated,
is a sincere attempt to try to make the villain a much more complex entity. The
film makes the issue more palatable because the premise means Stargher is split
into two people, the child he was and who he is now, portrayed in his own head
as a deranged king who presides over his own kingdom. It also provides the
backbone of the film as it becomes the more interesting dramatic conflict than
the woman who is in peril because of Stargher, the cliché that's obviously
going to be resolved by the end as you'd expect it to be in a crime thriller.
The few tantalising details the
plot's crux has are what I like the most in the film, even if it's incredibly
brief, enough context and layers to how the technology work and the laws to it
to suggest a great deal of implications. While it never reaches the levels of
the animated film Paprika (2006) in
depicting the subconscious/dreams, it still envisions unique, phantasmagoric
interpretations of the individuals' psyches, far more so as Singh does
understand the tones of dreams and uses it to his advantage for atmosphere.
 |
| From http://www.hotflick.net/flicks/2000_ The_Cell/big/fhd002TCL_Jennifer_Lopez_023.jpg |
Technical Detail:
It would be perfunctious to call
aspects of The Cell's visuals music
video-like, as Singh directed videos
like R.E.M's Losing My Religion and is as indebted by them as much as other
sources for the film. Instead, alongside the imagination, it's the areas of
inspiration which really stand out with him, from Damien Hurst with a scene with a bisected horse to René Laloux's Fantastic Planet (1973) playing in the background of one scene.
A strong visual palette is here
that out-trumps other horror/thriller films, conveying the subconscious scenes
with immense boldness. The serenity of a child's mind is depicted with an
actual desert dune almost from a Persian desert, whilst Stargher's hellish mind
is saturated with gothic, fairy tale like images as well as stuff, for good or
bad, straight from a Marilyn Manson
album. Even the technology that allows the therapists to enter others' mind has
a graceful, vaguely Cronenbergian vibe to it, suits like human muscle and the
participants literally hung from cables as if in a levitating act.
 |
| From http://24.media.tumblr.com/O3K1aR1ENqk3cgx26uvkPjSQo1_500.png |
Not only is it worth
praising the production team for the film's technical quality, but it would be
criminal not to mention the late Eiko
Ishioka, an art director, costume and graphic designer whose boldest work
for cinema was for Francis Ford Coppola's
1992 Dracula. Her work, contributing to Singh's first four films before her passing, is exceptional, worn
pieces of art which could only exist in fantasy but are a marvel showing the
importance of costume design in films and what they can contribute to a movie's
atmosphere. Her work especially helps create a balance between the grotesque
gore and nastiness of the film, especially in the dreams, and a glamour and
spectacle also inherent in them, making it perfectly logical for Stargher to go
from a serial killer to a strange pale faced King decked out in his own royal
colours.
The film's only danger in terms
of visuals is to make all of this connect together, but for every moment where
it dangerously veers to commercialised gothic, the level of craftsmanship to
the film is what keeps it all consistent rather than a collection of random
moments. It goes as far as contribute a lion's share of hard work in making The Cell more than a middling film,
providing it with virtues that I can hold on to with praise. Even dated
computer effects, especially the coloured shapes and images seen when people
enter the subconscious, are actually accentuated by their obsoleteness, a
materialistic sheen from their obvious artificiality. That the dreams are never
attempting to be realistic, and many have theatre-like qualities, helps
immensely.
 |
| From http://theyshootzombies.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/thecell2000.png |
Abstract Spectrum: Grotesque/Mind Bender
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None
In terms of the visuals and the
content on an abstract level, I cannot put it on the List however. Smart moments
of recognition between reality and dreams, and how they can influence each
other, do stand out, but the film is a mainstream crime thriller at the end of
the day. The images are beautiful and startling, but never fully symbolic or
possessing an unknowable air of there being more to what is taking place. That doesn't
detract from the virtues but I cannot give it a rating just because of how it
looks either.
Personal Opinion:
I'll openly say that Tarsem Singh may not really be a
favourite director of mine, but at least with The Cell I can see his talent. An okay film in consistency
altogether, but an inspired one nonetheless.
No comments:
Post a Comment