Cronenberg is a director who deals with subjectivity and the ones who are not capable to accept the borders of the unified body and the borders between the other(s). For Lacan and Freud formation of subjectivity requires expelling certain things which corrupts the unified body. Imagination of coherent body is a pure condition of subjectivity which separates inside and outside. In this sense abject, which disturbs identity and border like body fluids, threatens the order of the body.In this context, choosing gynecology as a sub-story of the film isn't a coincidence. Because the female body and maternal body refers to abject.Source of abjection in a female body, uncontrollable monthly courses, milking the child and most important is giving birth, an ultimate experience of abjection in which inside and outside can't be identified easily.
Like in other Cronenberg films, The Fly, Naked Lunch, M. Butterfly, Crash, eXistenZ and Spider(the protagonists couldn't draw the line between themselves and animals, machines, "outside" and the other gender)in Dead Ringers we see this time identical twins transgressing borders of themselves in a very uncanny way. Their obsession to female vagina, and the "beauty" of it as Elliot expressed, and inventing new tools for it is referring female body as an abject, like in many other horror films. I think this film goes far beyond the classical horror films because of its brilliantly structured plot and stunning performances of Jeremy Irons. This is not a clean-cut and easy subject to deal with. But the result is outstanding and for me the BEST of Cronenberg.
Like in other Cronenberg films, The Fly, Naked Lunch, M. Butterfly, Crash, eXistenZ and Spider(the protagonists couldn't draw the line between themselves and animals, machines, "outside" and the other gender)in Dead Ringers we see this time identical twins transgressing borders of themselves in a very uncanny way. Their obsession to female vagina, and the "beauty" of it as Elliot expressed, and inventing new tools for it is referring female body as an abject, like in many other horror films. I think this film goes far beyond the classical horror films because of its brilliantly structured plot and stunning performances of Jeremy Irons. This is not a clean-cut and easy subject to deal with. But the result is outstanding and for me the BEST of Cronenberg.