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Love, pain, and death.
A brilliant scientist brings to life a revolutionary machine that, in its creator's intentions, was supposed to teleport a human being from one booth to another. The initial attempts at confirming its success yield perfect results, and a large steak and a baboon make that journey of matter that so excited Seth Brundle. The next necessary step could, therefore, be executed.
Seth, however, on the day of truth, did not account for a small intruder that, along with him, was dematerialized from one capsule and rematerialized in the other.
From that moment on, the nightmare will have no end.
David Cronenberg's masterpiece is an oppressive and claustrophobic film that revolves around the unpleasant metamorphosis of the protagonist, whose DNA is mixed with that of a fly in that space-material journey he had so longed to undertake. The scenes are almost all shot indoors, which further emphasizes the sense of disquiet in the viewer as they observe Brundle's slow transformation and his psychological dramas, his existential isolation, his internal conflict to allow his human side to prevail, aided in this endeavor by the love he feels for journalist Veronica Quaife.
Jeff Goldblum's performance, in this sense, is masterful and he superbly embodies a modern "Gregor Samsa" in his becoming a monstrous and repugnant being, yet with his rational side never faltering (he is almost immediately aware of what is happening to him and tries in every possible way to stop the irreversible fate) even if overwhelmed in the end by the instinct of the insect.
Cronenberg hits us hard in the stomach, yet at the same time reveals his most intimate and personal side. The protagonist's slow but inexorable bodily and mental decay is so distressing and painful precisely because the director was profoundly marked by the sad experience he lived through in his childhood, when he watched his poor father slowly fade away, tormented by years of agony caused by the progression of a malignant tumor. From here arose the obsession with flesh, as also evident in his other films like "Scanners" and "Dead Ringers."
Faced with such suffering and isolation, not even the intense emotional bond that ties him to Veronica can save him, demonstrating that not even love can change an ending already written in the book of one's life, thereby reinforcing the typically Cronenbergian pessimistic component that is almost constantly present in all his works.
A remake of the film "The Fly" by Neumann, with the inimitable Vincent Price, "The Fly" represents one of the peaks of the horror genre created not to scare, but to disgust and, with that, to provoke thought.
Because disgust gradually gives way to pity until it culminates in emotion.
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