totally 9 pages movie review

SPLICE

In April 2010, the Arizona Legislature passed a law, SB 1307, making it a class 6 felony to knowingly or intentionally create a human animal hybrid. What do they know that the rest of the United States doesn’t? Does SB 1307 react to the actual genetic engineering of such a hybrid, or does it simply anticipate the design? In either event, SB 1307 literally suggests that the boundaries beyond Science and Fiction are now very blurred, and that Arizona is attempted to draw the proverbial line in the sand.

The Science Fiction Horror film Splice (2009) was directed by Vincenzo Natali, and stars Adrien Brody (Clive Nicoli), Sara Polley (Elsa Kast) and Delphine Chaneac (Dren) and deals directly with the subject of a human/animal genetic hybridization. Clive and Elsa are thirty something genetic rock stars leading the vanguard of scientifically designed hybrid animals for commercial gain. Although it is entirely unclear what exact market is being outlined by the film, the hybrid animal organisms named Fred and Ginger appear to be valuable because of their unique physiology, especially their enzymes; towards what specific commercial end is ultimately left up to the audience’s imagination. The film does state, however, that the hybrid enzymes will not be directed towards human consumption, medical treatment, or genetic modification, because of an anticipated political and moral backlash as alluded to in laws like Arizona’s SB 1307.

In short, Splice presents two conflicting motivations for human/animal genetic hybridization: 1) to alleviate human suffering, and 2) corporate profits. Of the two Scientists, Elsa is the one most impassioned by the prospect of helping human beings by ending diseases such as Schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s, and even some forms of Cancer. Unfortunately, Elsa and Klive are employed by a blank-faced and multi-national, genomic corporation presided over by a French CEO named Joan Chorot, played by actress Simona Maicanescu; who does not share Elsa’s humanitarian leanings and is more inclined to bolster investor profits by monetizing their advanced biogenetic engineering as is, ultimately shelving Elsa’s grandiose medical ambitions for pragmatic revenue streams. In response, Elsa recruits Klive into conducting a clandestine experiment involving the genetic splicing of animal and human genomes, at which point the story really begins.

The film is quite clear in depicting the fact that while Elsa and Klive have access to advanced technology and banks of genetic coda, human and animal, they are nevertheless working beyond their actual cognitive limits. They appear to mix DNA sequences at random, and then express surprise and confusion when one their experiments actually begins to work, producing a genuine chimera. Clearly, they have not given any larger thought to the project than wanting to be the first biogenetic scientists to cross the literal line and make history. Of course, that’s precisely where horror enters the picture, as the two bootlegging scientists seem as confused about the artificial gestation of their hybrid organism as the audience. For instance, at one telling point the developing chimera’s heart stops beating in artificial utero, clearly startling Elsa’s overall sense of confidence; who is then even more confused when it suddenly turns back on. Is this “lifer-after-death” incident supposed to be read as some kind a religious parable? Hard to say, but it does underline the unnatural nature of the developing hybrid, and alludes to its chameleon like character.

As outlined in Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection, advantageous genetic mutations are propagated down through the species eventually becoming dominant traits. The overall success of the mutation is determined in great part by environmental conditions that can favor certain mutations in one generation, while others in the next. Sexual Selection denotes inter-species preferences for physical traits that exist outside the basic requirements of survival. A classic example of Sexual Selection can be found in the elaborate plumage of the male peacock that is more decorative than functional, in the strictest sense of the words. Artificial Selection was a word coined by Darwin to demarcate a process by which genetic traits were chosen arbitrarily, as in the decisions human beings make in breeding different sizes of dogs as pets.

Splice seems to mine deeply the antipathy often born of contemporary biogenetic engineering, and hence the entire film is dedicated to the artificial and hence unnatural quality of the developing chimera. Human beings, for instance, have evolved directly from Natural and Sexual Selection, and may be Unconsciously prone to see organisms derived by Artificial Selection as abnormal, even threatening. It might be interesting to speculate that a genetically modified human being might not object to the manner of Elsa’s and Klive’s genetic experimentations because of Unconscious genetic parallels that could engender empathy rather than antipathy. In any case, Splice seems determined to mine and exploit current popular fears regarding human genetic engineering, modification, and cloning.

In many ways, Splice is contemporary update of the classic story of Frankenstein: a “monster” that was put tighter artificially from the illegally exhumed remains of dead humans and than zapped back to life via the power of electricity. Likewise, the monster in Splice, named Dren, is a hybrid mishmash of human and animal DNA spliced together in a haphazard manner and brought to life in an artificial womb. In a rather crafty sleight of hand, however, the filmmakers of Splice never disclose the identities of the animals used in the genetic splicing. In Sam Raimi’s Spiderman (2002), for instance, Peter Parker is clearly bitten by a genetically engineered super-spider that functions as the definitive source for his mutations. In David Cronenberg’s remake of The Fly (1986), Mad Scientist Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) accidentally fuses his genetic DNA with that of a fly during a test featuring teleportation, and mutates into a half-human/half-fly monstrosity that has to be euthanized at the end of the film. In Ang Lee’s The Hulk (2003), Bruce Banner’s Mad Scientist Father administers him with a genetic cocktail derived in part from the genetic blueprint of a starfish, with the anticipation that his son will have the power to regenerate missing limbs or rebuild damaged tissue.

In Splice, however, it is never precisely disclosed which animal genes were used to form the basic physiological infrastructure for Dren; she is the unknown accumulation of divergent evolutionary streams in which dominant and recessive genes battle for influence. For instance, in the embryonic stage of Dren she has a tail equipped with a neurotoxin that nearly kills Elsa in the “birthing” process. It is unclear from what animal such a tail is derived, but it is tempting to list scorpion as the obvious choice, but there is no further evidence to support this conclusion. This goes back to the question of motivation, and what specifics sets of animal DNA might the Mad Scientist couple find appropriate or appealing under the circumstances of such a highly unorthodox and illegal experiment.

For instance, Dren appears to go through several different evolutionary stages from birth to full term adult. In her childhood stage, Dren’s eyes are located on either side of her head, suggesting that she does not initially have stereoscopic vision; it is in this prepubescent form that she looks the most alien, and acts the least human. It is unclear, for instance, how this initial lack of stereoscopic vision might impact her cognitive development, and unfortunately this issue is never addressed at length in the film. However, as Dren ages, her eyes move to the front of her skull, allowing her to perceive space in three dimensions. Stereoscopic vision is a pre-requisite for carnivores, and so it is implied that that dominant component of her genetic makeup has taken charge, given possible insights into her own interior psychical states, including possible motives for her more aggressive behavior towards Elsa after she reaches puberty.

Initially, Elsa and Clive perceive Dren only as an experiment, but as she develops both physically and mentally their attitudes turn parental, creating a rather tragic and farcical version of the nuclear family. At the start, Elsa spends the most time with Dren as she tests her developing cognitive abilities, including the ability to form abstract associations between pictures and objects. At this point Elsa is dressing Dren in child’s clothing and making little distinction between Dren as a byproduct of genetic engineering and Dren as a pseudo daughter. Clive initially resists Elsa’s anthropomorphizing of Dren, but gradually resigns his clinical detachment after they are forced to leave the lab and take refuge at Elsa’s Mother’s farmhouse. The transition to the farmhouse allows the film to explore Elsa’s abusive upbringing, including the fact that her mother probably suffered from a lifelong mental illness, a genetic trait possibly passed on to Elsa.

This new data begins to shape Elsa’s initial antipathy for authority figures, rules, and regulations, and suggests that her motivation to find radical cures for human ailments, especially Schizophrenia, may spring both from her upbringing and her own mental illness. Additionally, it begins to explain her antipathy to having a child with Clive, especially considering his desire to start a family. Initially, the film discloses that Elsa and Clive used an anonymous female DNA sample in the splice sequence that creates Dren, but only later does the film reveal that it actually came from Elsa. In a telling and disturbing scene at the farmhouse, Clive teaches Dren how to dance and becomes uncomfortably aware that he is sexually attracted to her. At this time he finally perceives that Elsa submitted her own DNA into the chimera experiment, and that he is attracted to Dren in the same genetic manner he is attracted to her, suggesting that his attraction to Dren has been passed down from mother to “daughter.”

Elsa’s abusive history with her mother is played out in her domineering control over Dren. In the barn, for instance, Dren befriends a cat as an antidote to her isolation, but when Elsa discovers it she immediately takes it away, scolding her in the process, “You can’t always get what you want.” There is little doubt that Elsa is role playing her mother, and rationalizing her desire to dominate Dren both physically and mentally. Later on, after remorse sets in, Elsa returns the cat to Dren who immediately kills it with her poison stinger. Elsa then strikes Dren across the face, who responds by attacking Elsa and clearly threatening her with death, but instead of stabbing her Dren takes the barn door keys from a chain on her neck and opens the door to escape. Elsa recovers and hits Dren on the back of the head with a shovel, while unconscious Elsa ties Dren down to a table and prepares to amputate the stinger. She strips Dren of her clothing, and thus of her vestiges of humanity, and stabs her viciously with a syringe filled with a local anesthetic. All the while, Elsa is dictating her actions, including her rationalizations for excessive violence, into a hand-held taper-recorder, shutting down any compassion towards the now hapless Dren who can only whimper in misery and fear. The hypodermic needle stabbed into the naked Dren is evocative of a rape scene, and shows how far Elsa has been scarred by her relationship with her mother, and/or the extent of her own mental deterioration. Paradoxically, when she cuts of Elsa’s stinger it becomes suggestive of a castration scene, possibly foreshadowing the end when Dren changes gender.

Clive arrives at the very end of the amputation scene and is clearly shocked by Elsa’s action, but is also clearly impotent to resolve the situation. Elsa thus literally dominates both Clive and Dren, and shuts them completely off from her emotional reality. This tension is both escalated and resolved the next day when Clive enters the barn to comfort Dren, but finds her rather fully recovered, naked, and committed to having a sexual encounter with him. Initially, Clive rebukes her advance, but ultimately succumbs to her solicitations and they consummate their relationship. Elsa arrives in time to see their climax, and leaves in shock and disgust, followed by a half-naked and clearly mortified Clive. It is unclear if Clive’s intercourse with Dren amounts to incest, but the inference is provocatively suggested although never fully resolved.

It is difficult to fully comprehend the motivation for Dren’s actions because her age is heavily accelerated, and the film does not allow her access to verbal language so that she is not able to articulate her own internal consciousness or sense of self; she communicates, for instance, in a series of high pitched squeaks and clicks that confer only the basic emotive construct of happiness or unhappiness. The timeline of Splice suggests that Dren moves from infancy, through puberty, and into adulthood in roughly under a month. However, she is clearly far in advance of a human counterpart in terms of her general cognition, which suggests that she may be akin to a genius if she were to continue to develop.

In the final act of the film, Dren undergoes a radical metamorphosis from female to male, suggesting at least one possible motive for wanting to acquire sperm from Clive.

The male version of Dren is far more hostile, and seems to retain little, if any, of her initial humanity, of filial attachment to either Elsa or Clive. Furthermore, Male Dren clearly has no compunction about killing, and murders Clive’s younger brother and a Lab Administrator in cold blood. Following this he attacks and rapes Elsa, who asks for his motivation for these extremely violent actions, and his response is chilling, “In you.” Again, because the age of the Male Dren is so ambiguous relative to human cognitive development, it is difficult to know how much of his actions he is aware of on a conscious level. Clearly, too, this later stage of Dren has the ability to verbalize interior motivations, and so too seek a form of revenge on his mother that Psychoanalysis would immediately diagnosis as an enabled Oedipal Complex.

After Elsa’s rape, Clive shows up and plows a stake through the back of the male Dren, mortally wounding him; however, before his death he looks over at Elsa, and then stabs Clive to death with his stinger to destroy any chance of posthumous happiness.

The uncertain nature of Dren is clearly the subject of Splice, as is the ultimate biological nature of humanity itself rendered through the frame of genetic engineering. Ultimately, the film raises more questions answers. For instance, is Dren human simply because she has some human DNA, or is she more animal because her DNA is not completely human? If Dren is understood as Elsa’s daughter, who, or what, would constitute her father? Does Dren’s cognitive ability match her biological growth? If so, at what point would she clearly be superior in intellect to by Elsa and Clive? If Elsa and Clive are under contract to the multi-national genomic company, does that mean Dren is their property? If making a human animal hybrid constitutes a class 6 felony in Arizona, what would be the status of the chimera? Would a chimera like Dren possess any Civil Rights under the constitution of the United States? Could a genetic hybrid born in the United States be considered a U.S. citizen? Dren is a powerful foil for the kinds of complicated questions raised by genetic engineering, especially by the prospect of splicing together human animal hybrids. Dren, ultimately, does not speak for herself in the film, and it is in precisely that vacuum that audiences can project their own humanity. Only time will tell, however, whether the Science Fiction outlined by the film Splice becomes actual headline news for national debate regarding the nature of hour humanity, and the role of genetic engineering in our future.

Splice Essay Prompts:

1) According to the film, how many different animals were spliced together with Human DNA to make the Dren creature? Can you locate a reason for the different choices?

2) How can you explain Dren’s incredible rate of biological growth? Does it derive from the animal DNA, or might it be totally inexplicable? Does Dren’s mind grow as fast as her body, if so, what are the consequences in terms of her mental abilities?

3) Why does Elsa secretly splice her own DNA into the Dren creature? How might that relate to her relationship with her mother? Why does Elsa dress Dren up like a female human?

4) What is Clive’s initial reaction regarding the Dren creature? How and why does that change over the course of the film? Why does he have sex with Dren? Given her “age,” and the fact that she couldn’t possibly consent, what would be the legal consequences for him in America’s judicial system? If you were a lawyer, and were going to provide a defense for Clive’s actions, how would you about defending him? Would you draw Elsa as a witness? Would you argue that Dren initiated the sexual encounter? Might you state that since she is not human, no rape occurred?

5) What kind of company does Elsa and Clive work for, and what exactly is their goal regarding biogenetic engineering? How much do you think Elsa and Clive get paid for their work? Why would they sacrifice everything and break with the conditions of their employment?

6) In your own opinion, what happens to Elsa at the end of the film? How much money do you think would be adequate compensation for having the Male Dren’s child? What do you think Elsa’s child will look like? Could her child ever go to school with normal humans? Would Elsa’s child be the property of the corporation that bought her? What do you think that child’s life would be like?

Vocabulary:

1) genome: the full complement of genetic information that an individual organism inherits from its parents, especially the sets of chromosomes and the genes they will carry.

2) gene: the basic unit capable of transmitting characteristics from one generation to the next.

3) DNA: a nucleic acid molecule in the form of a twisted double helix that is the major component of chromosomes and carries genetic information.

4) RNA: a nucleic acid that contains the sugar ribose, is found in all living cells, and is essential for the manufacture of proteins according to the instructions carried by genes.

5) chromosome: a rod-shaped structure in a cell nucleus carrying the genes that determine sex and the characteristics and organism inherits from its parents.

6) junk DNA: Any portion of the DNA sequence of a chromosome or a genome for which no function has been identified.

7) splice: to join together or insert pieces of genetic material when altering the genetic structure of something or when forming a new combination.

8) chimera: an organism, or part of one, with at least two genetically different tissues resulting from mutation, the grafting of plants, or the insertion of foreign cells into an embryo.

9) hybrid: an animal that results from the mating of parents from two distinct species or subspecies.

10) human: having the imperfections and weaknesses of a human being rather than a machine or divine being.

11) humanity: the qualities or characteristics considered as a whole to be typical of human beings.

12) civil rights: rights that all citizens of a society are supposed to have, for example, the right to vote or to receive fair treatment from the law.

13) intelligence: the ability to learn facts and skills and apply them, especially when this ability is highly developed.

14) imagination: the ability to form images and ideas in the mind, especially of things never seen or never experienced directly.

15) enzyme: a complex protein produced by living cells that promotes a specific biochemical reaction by acting as a catalyst.

16) commerce: the large-scale buying and selling of goods and services.

17) international: extending beyond or across national boundaries.

18) biochemistry: the scientific study of the chemical substances, processes, and reactions that occur in living organisms.

19) biocompatible: the ability of a material to perform with an appropriate host response in a specific situation.

20) euthanasia: the act or practice of killing somebody who has an incurable illness or injury, or allowing or assisting that person to die.

21) clandestine: secret or furtive, and usually illegal.

22) experiment: a test, especially a scientific one, carried out in order to discover whether a theory is correct or what the results of a particular course of action would be.

23) conglomerate: a large business organization that consists of a number of companies that deal with a variety of different business, manufacturing, or commercial activities.

24) profit: the excess of income over expenditure during a particular period of time.

25) science: the study of the physical world and its manifestations, especially by using systematic observation and experiment.

26) science fiction: a form of fiction, usually set in the future, that deals with imaginary scientific and technological developments and contact with other worlds.

27) mutation: a random change in a gene or chromosome resulting in a new trait or characteristic that can be inherited.

28) metamorphosis: a complete or marked change in the form of an animal as it develops into an adult, for example, the change from tadpole to frog or from caterpillar to butterfly.

29) morality: standards of conduct that are accepted as right or proper.

30) ethics: the study of moral standards and how they affect conduct.

Splice Questions:

1) Who do they work for? What is their job goal? Why does their employer not want to take the next step and use human DNA?

2) Who is the French woman, and who does she work for? What are her goals? Why are her goals different than Elsa and Clive?

3) Why name the two designer organisms Fred and Ginger? Why make the designer organisms, what is their reason to exist?

4) Why is it against the law to clone human beings? Why don’t Elsa and Clive obey the law? What higher goal do they think they are serving?

5) What animals are spliced together in order to form Dren?

6) What is junk DNA, and how does it function in the film?

7) Why doesn’t Elsa want to have children?

8) How many times does the Dren organism die, and what is the significance of her “rebirth?”

9) How would you describe Elsa’s relationship with her Mother? Why is that important to her relationship with Clive and Ultimately with Dren?

10) How quickly does Dren go from childhood to adolescence?

11) Why does Elsa take the cat away from Dren? Why does Dren kill the cat when she tries to give it back?

12) If Dren can spell the word “tedious,” is she “human?” How is humanity connected to intelligence and the ability to make abstract associations?

13) Why does Elsa slap Dren? Why does Dren attack Elsa?

14) Why don’t the end the experiment by killing Dren?

15) If Dren was made public, what would be her legal status in the United States?

16) Why does Elsa resent authority figures?

17) Why wouldn’t Elsa’s Mother let her wear makeup? What does that tell you indirectly about her Mother’s values? What happened to her Father, and why is that important?

18) Why doesn’t Dren have hair?

19) Why does Dren draw pictures of Clive and Elsa? Why does she conceal the drawings from Elsa?

20) Why can’t Dren speak?

21) Shouldn’t Dren go to school with other kids?

22) What is the Elektra Complex, and how does it function in the film Splice?

23) Why does Elsa secretly insert her DNA into the Dren experiment? Why doesn’t she tell Clive before she does it? How many secrets does Elsa keep from Clive?

24) Why does Clive have sex with Dren? Is this “incest,” or something else?

25) Is Elsa Dren’s “Mother?”

26) Is anyone prosecuted for murder at the end of the film? What are the consequences of the Clive’s death, that of his brother, and the senior administrator? Shouldn’t someone go to jail for their deaths?

27) What on Earth does Elsa give birth to? Did she actually sell her baby to the corporation?

28) Who might actually want an organism like Dren?