Crimes of the Future (2022)
Country: CAN/GR/GB
Technical: col 107m
Director: David Cronenberg
Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Léa Seydoux, Don McKellar, Kristen Stewart
Synopsis:
In an undetermined future, pain and infection have vanished from human physiology, and people have a new fascination with surgery as a path to meaning. Some grow new organs, which may be tumours or have functions yet unknown, and one underground movement attempts to evolve a digestive system capable of consuming plastic, while a performance artist and his assistant surgically remove his own spontaneous creations in a live operating 'theatre'.
Review:
The latter is one of those 'implicit' Cronenbergian puns, like the 'handgun' in Videodrome, though he does soundcheck 'raw material' for autopsy, and characters by the name of Saul (soul?) Tenser, Wippet and Timlin. This is not (mercifully) a remake of the director's 1970 film of the same name, but is equally the product of his over-fertile, some might say 'sick', imagination and gallows humour. As in Naked Lunch, exterior furnishings are as organic as internal spaces, and if orgasm via scalpel doesn't float your boat, I should steer clear of the 'sex scene'. In sum, this is cerebral Science Fiction, chilly, well made, and ending on one of those bleak epiphanies common in Cronenberg's work. A vision of the future for which we do not share his agog fascination.
Country: CAN/GR/GB
Technical: col 107m
Director: David Cronenberg
Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Léa Seydoux, Don McKellar, Kristen Stewart
Synopsis:
In an undetermined future, pain and infection have vanished from human physiology, and people have a new fascination with surgery as a path to meaning. Some grow new organs, which may be tumours or have functions yet unknown, and one underground movement attempts to evolve a digestive system capable of consuming plastic, while a performance artist and his assistant surgically remove his own spontaneous creations in a live operating 'theatre'.
Review:
The latter is one of those 'implicit' Cronenbergian puns, like the 'handgun' in Videodrome, though he does soundcheck 'raw material' for autopsy, and characters by the name of Saul (soul?) Tenser, Wippet and Timlin. This is not (mercifully) a remake of the director's 1970 film of the same name, but is equally the product of his over-fertile, some might say 'sick', imagination and gallows humour. As in Naked Lunch, exterior furnishings are as organic as internal spaces, and if orgasm via scalpel doesn't float your boat, I should steer clear of the 'sex scene'. In sum, this is cerebral Science Fiction, chilly, well made, and ending on one of those bleak epiphanies common in Cronenberg's work. A vision of the future for which we do not share his agog fascination.
Country: CAN/GR/GB
Technical: col 107m
Director: David Cronenberg
Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Léa Seydoux, Don McKellar, Kristen Stewart
Synopsis:
In an undetermined future, pain and infection have vanished from human physiology, and people have a new fascination with surgery as a path to meaning. Some grow new organs, which may be tumours or have functions yet unknown, and one underground movement attempts to evolve a digestive system capable of consuming plastic, while a performance artist and his assistant surgically remove his own spontaneous creations in a live operating 'theatre'.
Review:
The latter is one of those 'implicit' Cronenbergian puns, like the 'handgun' in Videodrome, though he does soundcheck 'raw material' for autopsy, and characters by the name of Saul (soul?) Tenser, Wippet and Timlin. This is not (mercifully) a remake of the director's 1970 film of the same name, but is equally the product of his over-fertile, some might say 'sick', imagination and gallows humour. As in Naked Lunch, exterior furnishings are as organic as internal spaces, and if orgasm via scalpel doesn't float your boat, I should steer clear of the 'sex scene'. In sum, this is cerebral Science Fiction, chilly, well made, and ending on one of those bleak epiphanies common in Cronenberg's work. A vision of the future for which we do not share his agog fascination.