The Cell

[domino harvey]

HIS MIND IS HER PRISON

Sublime, grotesque and visually ravishing, Tarsem Singh’s debut feature delivers on the extraordinary artistry of his work in music video and commercials as it takes the audience on a journey through the bizarre worlds inside the mind of a killer.

When serial murderer Carl Stargher (Vincent D’Onofrio) falls into a coma with his latest victim still trapped in an unknown location and waiting to die, the FBI turn to psychologist Catherine Deane (Jennifer Lopez) for help. Using an experimental technology she enters the dark dreamscape of Stargher’s mind, attempting to learn his secrets before it’s too late. But his unconscious is a twisted nightmare, a labyrinth that threatens to trap her inside his terrifying world forever. To save a life, she’ll have to risk her own.

With a script by Mark Protosevich (I Am Legend), and a supporting cast that includes Vince Vaughn (Brawl in Cell Block 99) and Marianne Jean-Baptiste (In Fabric), The Cell is a gripping, edge-of-the-seat thriller, filled with jaw-dropping imagery that will entrance and unsettle in equal measure.

2-DISC 4K ULTRA HD LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS
• Brand new 4K restorations of both the 107-minute Theatrical Cut and the 109-minute Director’s Cut by Arrow Films, approved by director Tarsem Singh
• Includes bonus disc containing a previously unseen version of the film with alternate aspect ratio and alternate grading created by director of photography Paul Laufer
• Original lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1 audio
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Illustrated collector’s book containing new writing on the film by critics Heather Drain, Marc Edward Heuck, Josh Hurtado, and Virat Nehru
• Limited edition packaging with reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Peter Savieri

DISC 1 - FEATURE & EXTRAS (4K ULTRA HD)
• 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray™ (2160p) presentation of both the Theatrical and Director’s cuts of the film in its original 2.39:1 aspect ratio with Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
• Brand new audio commentary with film scholars Josh Nelson & Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
• Brand new audio commentary with screenwriter Mark Protosevich & film critic Kay Lynch
• Archive audio commentary with director Tarsem Singh
• Archive audio commentary with director of photography Paul Laufer, production designer Tom Foden, makeup supervisor Michèle Burke, costume designer April Napier, visual effects supervisor Kevin Tod Haug, and composer Howard Shore
• Projection of the Mind’s Eye, a new feature-length interview with director Tarsem Singh
• Between Two Worlds, a new in-depth interview with director of photography Paul Laufer

DISC 2 - ALTERNATE VERSION & EXTRAS (BLU-RAY)
• Previously unseen version of the Theatrical Cut of the film, presented in 1.78:1 aspect ratio with alternate grading, from a 2K master created by director of photography Paul Laufer
• High Definition Blu-ray™ (1080p) presentation
• Paul Laufer Illuminates, a new interview about the alternate master of The Cell presented on this disc
• Art is Where You Find It, a new visual essay by film scholar Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
• The Costuming Auteur, a new visual essay by film critic Abby Bender
• Style as Substance: Reflections on Tarsem, an archive featurette
• Eight deleted/extended scenes with optional audio commentary by director Tarsem Singh
• Six multi-angle archive visual effects vignettes
• Theatrical trailers
• Image gallery

[colinr0380]

Great news. I enjoyed this film, although once you start recognising the inspirations for where all of the different bizarre images are being gathered from it becomes slightly less novel. Although that may be the idea with it mostly taking place inside a contextless parade of imagery within a person's mind that is taking the Se7en serial killer trend of the late 90s as its pretext to conjure with scenes that mash up Damien Hirst with Nine Inch Nails, with Silk Cut tobacco ads for the killer's mind, before the duelling minds and imagery with the Latin Catholic tinge to its finale. It all kind of builds into an intentional mélange of appropriated clashing imagery. (I think my favourite outside of the mindscape sequences is probably that striking shot of the comatose killer being wheeled out of the helicopter and into the Dream Institute)

Plus its got an excellent score by Howard Shore (hopefully the "Production Team" commentary from the New Line DVD gets ported forward, which includes snippets of the isolated score with Shore talking about them) and skinned body costumes very reminiscent of her work on Bram Stoker's Dracula from Eiko Ishioka! Tarsem's commentary track (again on the original New Line DVD) is very amusing too, not holding back on his complaints/regrets about how he should have swapped the two actresses playing the serial killer's victims around!

[rapta]

Great stuff, and the kind of cult title I would have hoped Arrow would rescue when they set up this Warner Bros deal (I wonder if Birth will be next...that'd be incredible). Good timing too as Tarsem's The Fall is being re-released theatrically by MUBI (and hopefully a disc will appear soon after, though I do still have the OOP Blu-ray).

[therewillbeblus]

One of the few movies I ever shut off just minutes in, but always meant to return to it since it's such a cult fav

[colinr0380]

To be fair the introductory scene of the serial killer where he hangs himself by hooks through the skin of his back (a year before a similar thing turned up in Takashi Miike's film of Ichi the Killer!) and, um, pleasures himself over the transformed into a doll-like bleached corpse of his latest victim is arguably one of the most viscerally disgusting of all the serial killer antics during that period, so I would not blame anyone who would have shut the film off when that scene occurred!

[flyonthewall2983]

2 unpleasant experiences with this one. First having to do with a tv spot and the only time me and my brother ever babysat. The other more direct and seriously unpleasant one was watching it on cable tv later. I was creeped out by it well enough but fascinated with some of the visuals* to figure it maybe needed a rewatch for me to come down on one side.

This transient thought lasted for maybe however long it was before I switched to CNN, and there being interviewed was one of Dennis Rader's living victims, who as a six year old boy was forced to watch his mother die. At the time of the interview he was 31, but he looked to me like he lived so much eternal internal turmoil he could have been said to be an older man it wouldn’t have surprised me. The amount of empathy I felt for him meant that even putting myself into that horrible situation caused me, 21 years old, to ball up on the floor and cry.

For such an unfortunate timing that was, it made me hate this movie as a result. Vincent D’Onofrio hated it too, which made me respect him more as a man and an artist to be honest about a failing he was part of. I remember his performance being okay (honestly think the scariest role of his is either in FMJ or Strange Days), *and I must admit the fetishy stuff of it appealed to me. I remember seeing around this time a few pictures of someone in the dress and makeup Lopez sports in the poster, at the Folsom Street Fair.

[denti alligator]

The Quay Bros references are all I remember.

[Mr Sausage]

(honestly think the scariest role of his is either in FMJ or Strange Days),

Don’t forget The Salton Sea. One of the most unnerving and intimidating villains around, and a classic instance of a single actor elevating a mediocre movie to something memorable.

[flyonthewall2983]

All that, and funny too. I liked that movie more than to describe it as otherwise mediocre, but it’s probably safe bet it doesn’t hold up as well now.

[colinr0380]

The Quay Bros references are all I remember.

That was going on a lot during that period (the opening titles of House on Haunted Hill come to mind as well). Along with the imagery in The Cell, and its literally interalised riff on the serial killer genre, the most interesting thing about the film is perhaps its take on duelling religious philosophies, with the killer having one of those Baptist Fundamentalist Christian style upbringings that is implied to have twisted his mind from childhood coming up against Lopez's character bringing (injecting) in her super Catholic imagery to counter it at the ending. With both the interesting implication that religion is entirely a construct within people's specific minds that they 'weaponise' against others to achieve their own ends, with the use of art, ancient or modern, being a close second in how it gets used, but still currently subservient to those larger forces.

Plus, its got a great nod to Fantastic Planet, with Lopez falling asleep to it whilst it is playing on the television in an early scene!

[colinr0380]

(honestly think the scariest role of his is either in FMJ or Strange Days),

Don’t forget The Salton Sea. One of the most unnerving and intimidating villains around, and a classic instance of a single actor elevating a mediocre movie to something memorable.

Some distributor really needs to get Leonard Schrader's Naked Tango out there, since in that Vincent D'Onofrio plays a Rudolph Valentino-esque character who is both scary and sexy! The abbatoir tango scene is a highlight of that.

[yoloswegmaster]

Coming in January

[dwk]

Arrow messed up the director's cut and it is missing footage

[The Curious Sofa]

Two terrible films for the price of one. The first is the kind of Silence of the Lambs rip-off that was flooding multiplexes at the time, with a comically miscast Jennifer Lopez as the Clarice Starling stand-in. The second is Tarsem Singh's mood board for the dream sequences, translated directly to film. He doesn't adapt his visual influences to the needs of the plot and characters, he just copies them. This undermines the whole premise of entering the mind of a comatose serial killer to solve a case, because the imagery has nothing to do with the psychology of the patient, but is just cool stuff that Singh wants to show off with.