Splice (2010)

Behold Frankenstein spliced with Pygmalion

Canadian director Vincenzo Natali is known mostly for his poverty row masterpiece Cube. Unbeknownst to many, he has directed three feature films since then: Cypher, Nothing and this, Splice, his most ambitious film to date. So ambitious that Natali had to cross the pond in order to find financing, the main reason being that the Americans were put off by the central sex scene featured in the early screenplay. Apparently, only the French could foresee the incredible beauty of this scene and so they contributed money, as well as the courageous Delphine Chanéac to the project, giving it wings to shock and surprise the world.

Long lost twins: Delphine Chanéac kisses a plush toy

representing an early incarnation of her character

Nature and nurture

The most striking feature of Splice is that it manages the uneasy mix of science-fiction and Shakespearian family drama (with all the tragic deaths that this involves). The interpenetration of the two genres is scary in that it suggests a total blurring of boundaries between the purely cartesian drive toward science and the usage of science to remedy personal ills. If the story owes a lot to Shelley and Whale's Frankenstein (including the names of the protagonists, Elsa and Clive), it doesn't pertain solely to the folly of man trying to mimic God. It talks also about the woes caused by the emotional involvement in the domain of science and how it pertains to the recent breakthroughs in human DNA patents. Specifically, it talks about parenting in our era of performance and the subsequent objectification of children. By focusing on an engineered child, a child object, Splice is thus a cautionary tale that warns us not against the excesses of science, but the practical uses thereof.

Did you know that two sterile people deciding to have a child in vitro run a high risk of "giving birth" to a handicapped baby? There's a very simple explanation for that: nature has made people sterile who shouldn't have children. Obviously, the issue is much more complex than that since you must also consider the exterior elements that can cause hormonal imbalances. But at any rate, sterility should be a natural detractor to child-rearing. I know this to be a very sad and very cruel fact of life. But it remains just that: a fact. What people are doing, and will continue doing with in vitro insemination and cloning is to reproduce themselves in ways that are not natural, ways that nature will eventually reject, ways with which we, as humans, are not equipped to deal. Instead of investing large sums of public money for fertility treatments that will ultimately go against nature, we should clean out our environment and encourage fertile people to procreate, first by raising their wealth, secondly by making family a social priority, and not merely an individual preference. Most of all, we should never let science become a simple alternative to sexual reproduction, for love, and most importantly, self-involvement will certainly be lost through the intermediary of machines.

The fake womb

Splice stars Adrian Brody and Sarah Polley as Clive and Elsa (named after the actors who portrayed Frakenstein and the bride of Frankenstein back in the 1930s), a couple of genius geneticists specialized in DNA-splicing. With funds from a very large pharmaceutical company, they have created a couple of turd-like hybrids from a compound of animal DNA, hoping to isolate a drug-producing gene within their creatures to allow the mass-production of cattle-healing products. Having perfected their splicing technique in the process, they are soon ready to undertake the next step in their work, namely the splicing of animal and human DNA. Apparently, the two scientists are initially driven by innovation and selflessness, but nothing is farther from the truth. Their true motivations for doing so remain unclear at first, although we can infer that Elsa wishes for an alternative to pregnancy.

The truth is that she fears motherhood, not only in its down-to-Earth, physical aspects (as exemplified by her wish to "break" male pregnancy in order to even the balance of nature), but also in the form of parenting (as exemplified by the hatred she feels toward her own mother and her subsequent fear of inadequacy). Thus, she injects a little of her DNA into the experiment, attempting to "reproduce" herself by way of sexless interaction. The creature she gives birth to is not merely a surrogate child, but a real child, at least in her fragile mind. But the primordial link between mother and daughter is severed here, and this primordial link is the umbilical cord, with which one is tied to her progeny in the most intimate, most self-sacrificing, and ultimately most beautiful relationship devised by nature. By displacing the womb outside the body, not only is the female scientist alienating her most sought-after, truly godly power of life, but she is disavowing the importance of the flesh in the process of child-rearing.

"It's alive, it's alive!": Elsa meets a diminutive iteration of herself

In their R&D lab, Clive and Elsa have access to an artificial womb named Betty. This is a swell little construct made of a thick rubber sack bathing in a pool of amniotic fluid surrounded by transparent "aquarium" walls. The thing is inseminated very much like a human womb, with some help from a cylindric metal syringe extended toward an ovum, which it imprints with customized genetic material. Once the baby is taking form, Betty is also able to monitor its heart rate, allowing the "parents" to artificially check in on its well-being. This provides suspense in one occasion during which the monitor flatlines, jeopardizing the experiment at hand as well as Elsa's mental well-being. It is also the first sign pointing to a problematic pregnancy. Scant days later, we see Betty overflowing, or "breaking her waters" as the Ferrari-fast cell multiplication process has already resulted in a ripe creature. Overwhelming with maternal joy, Elsa plunges her hand in the makeshift uterus, only to have it gripped by the creature inside. In a moment of panic, Clive smashes the aquarium walls and guts the rubber sack with a knife, in effect performing an unneeded Caesarean.

The very imagery selected to depict the birth of the creature entails many dark implications concerning science-assisted birth, paramount of which is the grotesque replication of nature. The human womb, be it a burden for self-seeking women or a man-humbling blessing, is much more than a baby oven, overreaching greatly its simple description with an endless array of psychoanalytical implications, whereas the artificial womb is exactly the sum of its parts. It can house a baby, but it cannot nurture it. It can provide warmth, but not loving warmth. Using a fake womb is the first of an endless series of substitutions performed by the two geneticists, which makes a mockery of parenthood as a scientific, or merely a cartesian endeavor. As the narrative evolves, it will become clearer and clearer how the drive to create a human being must be met with emotional maturity and selfless involvement, two things lacking in childish Clive and Elsa.

Family of Frankenstein
Thanks a nifty narrative twist, the development of their "baby" greatly exceeds the normal growth rate, turning from a grotesque tadpole into an androgynous humanoid in a matter of weeks. This provokes many setbacks for the emotionally retarded couple. At first, Clive doesn't want the child and he attempts to "abort" it by opening the gas valve in the lab. Later, he tries to drown her in a pool of ice water, being trumped after the deed by her amphibious lungs. All the while, Elsa is growing fond of her daughter, teaching her to read and write, and marveling at the rapid progress she is making. In turn, the little girl, named Dren, proves docile and easygoing, delighting her mother even more. But given her accelerated growth, she soon becomes an adolescent, and starts losing interest in her over-protecting mother, setting her sights on Clive instead. This is when things take a turn for the worst, where casual teenage rebellion creates bitter rivalries and eventually destroys the family.

Infanticidal rage: Clive tries to put an end to Elsa's dream

To Elsa, Dren is a source of pride and joy. Not only is she a smashing scientific success, but also an object on which to bestow the love she was refused as a child. I emphasized the word "object" because this is how Dren is treated by her surrogate mother, who wishes to correct the mistakes of the past but ends up repeating them instead, with even direr consequences. Because of her perverted drive to exorcize the demons from her childhood, Elsa fails to see her daughter as an individual, and not merely a copy meant to liberate her own mind. Her main shortcoming as a parent, and what reveals her objectification of Dren under the most unflattering light, is how she fails to acknowledge her daughter's rebellious inclinations as signs of normal adolescent behavior, punishing her for it with ritualistic scientific butchery.

When Dren attacks her mother after an emotionally heated confrontation, waving her stinger in the face of the "oppressor" as an act of violent self-assertion, Elsa counter-attacks. She drugs the creature, straps her to an operating table and severs the stinger, despite the heart-breaking moans coming from Dren's throat. In order to justify her actions, she states that the creature "had become unstable", which is a defining feature of adolescence widely recognized by every parent from every culture. In covering her anger and dissatisfaction under the mask of scientific rigor, she only points out to her lack of empathy and humanity necessary to raise a child.

As a society, we are prompt to "cure" problems without even attempting to find the cause thereof, just like Elsa does here. By removing a part of her child, not only is she doing violence against her, but she merely displaces the problem stemming from her own lack of parenting skills. To a certain extent, this is like giving pills to a child to correct behavioral problems grown at home. The instantaneous and convenient recourse to science as a way to remove problems without self-involvement is a symptom of our times crystallized in the film, along with other trends in bad parenting, such as overindulgence.

It is interesting to note that Clive has a very different outlook on immaculate conception than Elsa's, and this pertains both to his parenting preferences and self-referral. In his eyes, adolescent Dren (and not the grotesque tadpole from previous incarnations) is an unbridled version of Elsa, and thus he falls in love with her just as he did with Elsa back when she wasn't a frigid workaholic. What's more is that, contrary to his girlfriend, he doesn't see himself as a "parent", but as a craftsman. Hence, the reference to Pygmalion, the Cypriot sculptor who fell in love with one of his statues. Smitten by his creation, Clive is torn by wet dreams involving the whimsical creature. In one instance, where he is scanning the camera screens monitoring Dren's activities, he catches a glimpse of her swimming seductively in a water tank. As he touches the screen, so too does Dren touch the camera and they are instantly bound by unspeakable erotic attraction. Sexual tension between the two actually occupies a large part of screentime during the second part of the film, culminating in an eye-popping sex scene that should have people talking.

By passionately fucking Dren, Clive is also using her as an object through which he can fulfill secret desires. In this scene, she becomes a substitute for Elsa, for whom he entertains unfulfilled sexual fantasies. Funny thing is that he gives Dren an orgasm but fails to reach one himself for he catches a glimpse of his girlfriend on the threshold of the barn, looking in at the incestuous spectacle of treason orchestrated before her unbelieving eyes. At any rate, Clive never acts as a father to Dren, more like an overindulgent stepfather or a guy friend, proving his inadequacy as a parent by flirting with the young one and fulfilling her minute desires in a bid to acquire her love through softness. Contrary to Elsa, his failure stems not from his selfishness, but his joyous immaturity and lack of spine. He is the lenient half of the couple, trying to balance Elsa's rigid stance with equally negative laissez-faire, proving that two wrongs don't make a right.

More than anything else, it is the two scientists' clashing opinions in regards to the conception of Dren which causes their family to falter and die. And this proves another point in relation to the issue of parenting. Early in the film, Clive shares his desire to have a child with Elsa, who seems disgusted by the idea, stating that she would only consider it if science could crack male pregnancy. In other words, she sees pregnancy as a form of impairment, a handicap if you will, which is not the case for Clive, who sees it as a way to prove their commitment to each other and generate a real offspring. At this point, it becomes obvious how their unreconcilable discrepancy of opinions will jeopardize the growth of their common hybrid project. Their further involvement in the project merely widens the gap between their two diverging opinions. Whereas Clive sees the birth of Dren as a freak accident, Elsa sees it as a welcome alternative to what she considers fearsome involvement in the process of child-rearing. By injecting some of her DNA into a test tube and inseminating an ovum with it, she tries to evade the rigid demands of nature, unaware that such a shortcut will actually alienate her from the child. By failing to mention her involvement to Clive, she also alienates him from the whole process. So, what we got here is a child-object created by Elsa without the approval of her boyfriend, who secretly wishes it dead. What this complex web of lies and deceit goes to show is how child-rearing should never be an individual choice, but the concerted effort of two willing participants. The crux of tragedy hence lies in the addition of solitudes which comes to constitute the family of Clive and Elsa, for which Dren is but a third parallel strand running unattached to the first two. Not only should child-rearing be a mutual enterprise but it should also be a natural one, two things which it isn't here, thanks to the readily available "science" of procreation.

The death of femininity

The sex scene involving Clive and his "daughter" Dren is undoubtedly the highlight of the film. It is at once disturbing, due to the incestuous nature of the act, but also strangely enticing, considering the many delightful features that Dren has inherited from hybridity. Not only is she quadrumanous, but she also has wings that spread out of her arms while atop her lover as well as a severed stinger that regenerates when she climaxes in what can only be described as a female ejaculation. The fascinating interplay of Dren and Clive's bodies, the way they wrestle for position on the dirty wooden floor and passionately undress their partner make this scene way hotter than the previous sex scene featuring Clive and Elsa, wherein the two scientists clumsily and rapidly have at it, removing not even one article of clothing. This discrepancy helps us understand the attraction of engineered youth. As I mentioned earlier, Clive sees Dren as a younger, freer version of Elsa and thus he can transfer his love toward the creature with relative ease. Hence, the "real" femininity of Elsa dies in the hyper-femininity of her daughter, Dren.

Chloe and Black Swan, eat your heart out! This is the best sex

scene of the year!

I have already approached the question of hyper-femininity in an essay focusing on Major Motoko Kusanagi, the shapely protagonist from Ghost in the Shell. Using Jean Baudrillard's theories on the simulacrum, which perfectly complements the philosophical stance of the film, I suggested that femininity dies in its own image. In the works of Masamune Shirow and Mamoru Oshii, this means that the female cyberbody has killed the natural female form by becoming the only "real" point of reference. Here, my theory works equally well, given the interplay of mirror images permeating Natali's film. In the eyes of Clive, Elsa has died in Dren, an engineered image of her. Her brilliant, but frigid femininity is not enticing to Clive at this point. He would much rather give in to the sexual availability and warmth of Dren, who eventually becomes a referential model of femininity despite her hybrid nature. Dren is fragile, docile, fun-loving, and seductive, all ideal female traits for a nerdy, ill-assured man like Clive for which she also becomes the ideal lover. Ironically, it is Elsa who precipitates Dren's sexualization by applying makeup on her, makeup that she had kept from her days as a girl. In doing so, she transfers her own femininity into her daughter, effectively killing it in the process. The mirror, which has enticed Clive, has first absorbed Elsa.

Dren's femininity overwhelms that of her mother Elsa

Playing an hybrid

By portraying Dren as she does, Delphine Chanéac makes the most of a demanding role, not only managing to emulate the creature's awkward movement seamlessly but appearing as a dual character who is both a vulnerable child, and a seductive, commanding woman. During the course of the film, she manages to sadden you with her plight, and at the same time seduce you with a sort of enterprising candor in the realm of sex. Chanéac achieves all of this with mere noises tacked onto the soundtrack, limiting her output mostly to Dren's oft melancholy, oft cheerful facial expressions. More importantly, she bares it all for Natali's camera, and for the publicity stills from the international release. Her genitalia is conveniently concealed under a bent limb, but even so, congratulations are in order for this young woman, if not for her courage, then for her crucial contribution to the narrative and its weirdly seductive atmosphere. With a lesser actress, the film might've crumbled under the weight of its ambitious reconstruction of classic tales. But thanks to Chanéac's gloriously showcased androgynous beauty and savvy dosage of whimsical-cum-dramatic attitude, she launches it into orbit instead.

Our sympathy for Dren is a crucial tenet of the film's efficiency. It allows us to reflect on the actions of her parents with somber seriousness. At first sight, her lack of freedom and "monstrous" aspect liken her to the Frankenstein monster. But unlike Karloff's character, the most despicable abuse she is subjected to comes not from a reactionary mob, but from her own creators, and especially Elsa, for whom Dren is a daughter whenever she is docile and a test subject when she is rebellious. This abuse allows the film to hammer home its point about illegitimate parenting with a resounding bang. But it would not have been possible, had Chanéac's voiceless acting not been so affective.

Cyclical visions

According to author Vincenzo Natali, this film is meant as a Greek tragedy, a notion I have tackled by referring to Pygmalion and Shakespeare. But since the film is basically a reworking of Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, it lends itself to mythological lore right from the start. As you know, Prometheus is the Titan who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to men, thus transferring the powers of gods unto humans. Frankenstein, just like Clive and Elsa, has stolen the secret of life from God and given it to humanity for its own selfish amusement. The dire fate of all three protagonists, the constant betrayals and murder attempts as well as the incestuous carnal acts comprised in Splice's narrative are further tenets of tragic construction. But in the end, such olden storytelling devices are meant to prove that history will constantly repeat itself, making man to perpetually be the instrument of his own suffering. If anticipation is herein tied to classicism, it is in telling the age-old story of human greed and selfishness. Pushing the envelope a little further, the film proposes a meditation not only on the unchanging nature of humanity, but on the topical re-contextualisation of the modern family in which it takes place, transposing the Athenian agoras into our own child-less homes by discussing the issue of parenting in very concrete terms. In telling the story of two unprepared and overworked parents confronted with sudden teenage rebellion, Natali crafts a universal tale of fear. In telling the story of child-object Dren, he crafts a soon-to-be universal tale of fear engineered by the cold selfishness of loveless reproduction. But in the end, he warns us that nature will always be a step ahead from humanity, whose fate is that which nature will choose.

3,5/5 A topical, yet universal science-fiction tragedy containing unforgettable imagery.