Direction: David Cronenberg
Country: USA
Body-horror specialist David Cronenberg delves into a futuristic gloom-and-doom scenario with a not-always subtle emotional balance in his newest film, Crimes of the Future. Curiously, this new work bears the same title as one of his earliest films (from 1970), which, addressing similar topics such as cosmetics, body distortion and aberrant sex, is not a prequel.
Reinventing himself, Cronenberg nods to scenes and passages from ExistenZ (1999) and Crash (1996), two cult films of the same kind, while working on an oppressive yet undeniable unique intermixture of pain, eroticism, technology, questionable art, and dark ambience. The film, marred by mutilations, implants and incisions, can be barbarously unpleasant to the eyes and can easily mess with your stomach too. It tells the story of a couple of artist performers - Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen) and Caprice (Léa Seydoux) - whose avant-garde shows consist of tattooed organs extracted live to be exhibited to the audience. This happens in a futuristic synthetic world where the absence of pain turns it into a sought after extravagance, and where surgery and self-mutilation are the new sex.
Cronenberg’s known obsessions with the human body and its possible mutations and challenges are well alive but this disturbing meditation on art and evolution fails to be a triumph on all fronts. Not every subtext and nuance has an impact; dismal feelings emerge from the abstract philosophical trait that connects tech and humanity. Moreover, the conceptual violence makes the film swing between fascination and repulsion. And yet, the script reveals some inventiveness. As for the visuals - capturing a blend of gothic and toxic atmospheres - and the foreboding score by regular collaborator Howard Shore, they are a perfect fit.
