The seventh and final film we watched from the ‘Shapeshifters’ film programme was Vincenzo Natali’s ‘Splice’ which was released in 2009.
Male dominance appears to be an occurring theme throughout this film. The gender changing hybrid creatures introduced at the beginning of the film both become male and kill each other whilst towards the end of the film Dren becomes male and kills all the male characters gathered near it.
This film is completely different from all the others of the programme in that it looks at nothing to do with metamorphosis but instead with the idea of splicing human and animal DNA to create a hybrid with qualities from all the participants, in this case wings, amphibious lungs and a stinger. The film has a resemblance to the "...Cronenbergian exploration of the perils of inter-species gene-splicing..." in almost every aspect, from the grotesque creation of something horrific that shouldn't exist to the inter-special intercourse. This film screams with influence from Cronenberg's films particularly focusing on the way he can incite disgust in the subject that has been created, even though in this case the subject is beautiful.
Just going back to the inter-special intercourse that is included in this film, it appears that this film is not without it's Freudian references with the ideas of humans having sex with other species and in this case the supposed father having sex with his created daughter. The ideas of a psychologically unstable family is typical of freudian theology, "...Dren regards Clive with the cowering
hostility of an unwanted animal. But soon enough, Clive is playing
good cop to Elsa's bad-mother cop,".
Male dominance appears to be an occurring theme throughout this film. The gender changing hybrid creatures introduced at the beginning of the film both become male and kill each other whilst towards the end of the film Dren becomes male and kills all the male characters gathered near it.
"Then there’s the idea of creatures who change sex in nature, as a part of natural progression. Is this to suggest male dominance..."
Also there is the fact that Dren can only make clicking noises as a female but when it becomes male it has the ability to speak english, which furthers the idea that this films suggests males are more dominant and capable than females.
Quote sources
Quote 1 - http://www.timeout.com/film/reviews/88628/splice.html
Quote 2 - http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1994085,00.html
Quote 3 - http://www.brutalashell.com/2010/06/review-splice/
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