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Dead Ringers
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by Anchor Bay
Sales Rank: 101721
Price: $24.98
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Like many other films by Canadian director David Cronenberg (especially <I>Crash</I>), <I>Dead Ringers</I> presents the cinematic and psychological equivalent of an automobile accident--you dare not look, but you can't turn away. The film marked a directorial breakthrough for Cronenberg, who was able to continue some of the themes explored in his earlier horror films while graduating to a higher, more critically "respectable" level of artistic sophistication. The film is loosely based, amazingly enough, on a true story about twin gynecologists who routinely traded each others' identities, lives and even lovers. Utilizing innovative split-screen technology (years before computer manipulation made such trickery much easier), the film stars Jeremy Irons in flawless dual roles as the identical brothers Beverly and Elliot Mantle. Their ability to instantly switch identities leads them to a shared relationship with a well-known actress (Genevieve Bujold) and, ultimately, a physical and psychological tailspin that sends them both to the brink of madness and death. The scenario suggests that both men are halves of a whole, and that one cannot exist without the other. But when Beverly pursues a kinky, drug-addicted affair with the actress, his more self-controlled brother is helpless to prevent their mutual decline. In this way <I>Dead Ringers</I> becomes a fascinating and stylistically clinical study of duality, and Cronenberg doesn't shy away from the dark and unpleasant aspects of the story. (One look at the movie's display of bizarre gynecological instruments and you'll know why women find this film particularly--and unforgettably--disturbing.) <I>--Jeff Shannon</I>
Viewer Reviews
Like many other known masters of horror like Tobe Hooper or George Romero, David Cronemberg is one of the most renowned and prominent directors working today in the industry. Only few talented filmakers sprang into public consciousness with such audacity and intelligence, from a series of low budget surprising shockers back in the mid 70's , untill today's acclaimed classic masterpieces of all times in modern horror, with the unmistakable mark of a true author, a gifted brilliant talent that explored with authentic passion, the limits and boundaries of hallucination, grotesque, and surrealistic carnal madness.
The difference between Cronemberg and other repected colleagues worth mention, is that he never got caged in the same level of scanning of the genre, he's a dark pioneer, a visionary of the physical and emotional human alterations, showed in both style and aesthetics so gruesome and disturbing, they became the language, the vocabulary of his frosty architecture of fear. He evolved, refusing to stick to a safe formula, exploring with anxiety his great concern throught his always tormented characters: The profound examination of the mind and the descent of the human psyche unto lunacy, along with the dissection and mutation of the flesh, with all the pain, anger and frustration implied, inflicted upon a human soul.
In this horrific drama, Jeremy Irons, i a career performance, plays two twin brothers, Beverly and Elliot Mantle, renowned gynecologist who operate in an exclusive clinic and share a great reputation of brilliant innovators in the field. They also share more intimate aspects like sexual complicity, as the more confident Elliot seduces women and then allows his more shy and introvert brother Beverly to reap the benefits. It all goes down when Beverly falls in love with careless drug addict actress Claire Niveau (Genevieve Bujold), a new patient with a bizarre gynecological deformity, fascinating the unprevented twin and inducing him to a dangerous addiction to drugs and alcohol along with the separation from Elliot. However, Elliot senses his brother's decline to paranoia and tries to save him, only to fall victim of the same urges. What continues can be described as a surrealist downward spiral of eccentric, raw, and painfuly insane circumstances and consequences, surrounded by a creepy cold atmosphere.
Unlike his previous masterpieces like the astonishing "The Fly", the classic mind-bending visual shocker "Videodrome", or even his first major effort that catapulted him to a cult-following status "Scanners", all outstanding and incredible classics, this movie was the true Cronemberg consecration in his filmaking carrer, he was consolidated as a director, master filmaker and unique author, cementing his path in the industry as an amazing and original creator. All those strong achievements, without the abuse of the trademark gore imagery that shocked audiences worlwide and defined his atrocious and raw portraits of macabre. Not leaving the usual mind-flesh connection still in its glory, with this critically aclaimed masterpiece "Dead Ringers", David Cronemberg proved his value as an artist, leaving the forbidden pleasures and desecrations of the flesh aside, with a new devotion for the obscure corners of the human mind, a real descent to insanity, and the best proof ever filmed that the grisly and sinister special effects were only serving a higher purpose, all the way in his prolific career.
The master of horror-surrealism dominated the sugestion as a form of mind-disturbance, in this almost isolated experience in his filmography, before he retaked the gore and shocking visuals imagery in the diurnal nightmare known as "The Naked Lunch". However, this masterpiece remains as a true portrayal of collapse in a frighteningly believable fashion, and obscure drama about obsession and emotional defects in a disquieting clinical tone, with all the bizarre qualities that turned Cronemberg in a master filmaker, side to side with David Lynch in the description of disturbing, deformed, atmospheric and uncomfortable worlds within human behaviour.
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Dead Ringers
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