It’s a well-known pitfall of bad science fiction that its characters can spend the first three chapters or the first forty minutes, setting off the various ways in which the world is portrayed differently from the rest of the world. our present world. “Krangoldsen: Overlords of Zurgatsk bids you step inside the Optimiser 3000 to get your daily dose of vitamins intravenously,” a widely caricature of such fare might be given. By David Cronenberg Crime of the futurepremiered at Cannes, not exactly bad science fiction, but it’s more of a talk about a movie that was touted as back to the shocks for masters of body horror.
Crime of the futureset in a context of astigmatism where humans have gotten rid of the concept of physical pain, and some people are able to develop independent internal organs, have a bit of a body… well, horror somehow not the word outright, as all the guts and meaty things are over-represented in reality to obfuscate or leave out. Somehow, in a live movie a character’s surgery is played out as some sort of shoddy performance art, or a character basically cuts someone’s wound, or someone kill their children, the shocks are unlikely to go unrecognized. It may be due to the constant chatter about this new world order, where every aspect of this universe is explained to us in terms like sledgehammer; and it can happen, too, because Cronenberg doesn’t seem interested in pushing the disorder any further into the realm of discomfort. For example, a scene, depicting a PT Barnum-style autopsy of a dead boy, could be taken much further; bonus, which features a close-up of a lot of intestines churning in an infant’s stomach, feels somehow coy.
The opening of the film is surprising — and unfortunately inappropriate in terms of oomph by the rest of the movie. Here, a strange child playing on the shore was called into the house by his mother, who warned him not to eat anything found in the sea. Then we find the boy stuffed into a bin of plastic scraps, sitting on the floor of a nasty bathroom: something clearly is going on with this boy. So far, so strong: Cronenberg sets his movie set on a derelict, dirty future, which completely deprives us of our sense of anxiety and curiosity. From there, we quickly move on to two other characters: Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen) and his partner Caprice (Lea Seydoux), a pair of performers specializing in the aforementioned live acts. (It should be added that the names of everyone in the film are a delight, from Tenser and Caprice to “Djuna Dotrice” and Kristen Stewart’s CharactersTenser is a physically unusual specimen capable of growing new organs, and his mates remove them from his body during live shows that have an overtly sexual flavor (as Cronenberg emphasizes). strong with us on several times).
All of this takes place in a reasonably imagined universe: Tenser sleeps in a bed that looks like half a walnut, suspended in the air and has strange tassels embedded in his body; he has an annoying chair that feeds him to his needs; Elsewhere, the world is depicted as having a sort of sleazy car park at night. This seems like a good world to discuss issues of our human boundaries: where do our bodies mature and technology takes over? At what stage do we become so divorced from our nature that we turn into mere beings? What role does pain play in offsetting everything that makes us truly exist? These are some pretty big questions for a movie, but it’s unclear here if Cronenberg has the means to go beyond asking them.
Part of that is because the film is choreographed so slowly that it’s full of messy scenes where the characters seem to make the point of the movie clear. There’s too much information to take in, presented inorganically: so we know that there’s a registry of new agencies, and Tenser is an informant, and there’s a tattoo system. new organs and some humans can now develop whole new digestive systems. Far from a nasty movie that makes the audience really sick, Crime of the future often feel a bit haggard New Yorkers such as cartoons that make tired observations about apps go too far.
“For example, there’s a strange moment when Caprice is about to dissect a body, in which she mentions the corpse, and then adds, “The corpse. Strong. Body speech. “Oh, okay?”
Sometimes, Cronenberg’s dialogue is reminiscent of late Woody Allen, or late Jim Jarmusch—Only lovers are alive, say — where those writers seem to emphasize their own jokes or ideas for the benefit of the audience, in a slightly rude way. For example, there’s a strange moment when Caprice is about to dissect a body, in which she mentions the corpse, and then adds, “The corpse. Vitality. Body speech. “Oh, okay? We all know basic Latin here, let’s go back to blood and liver. Throughout, Cronenberg can’t show something but he has to show it scientifically to people who might be too dense to figure it out. Sometimes this can lead to a few well-polished jokes – the film has a nice line of dialogue – but all too often it seems to fill the space with horror stories.
Crime of the future It’s a lighthearted film — intentionally so, perhaps, from a director whose years of pure editing come too long after him. Some of its musings are as valuable as the work of a late master pondering his own creative act, as the majority of the films focus on artists creating shocking body work. — but, and this is unfortunate, Crime of the future can also slur and whisper it, boring. Kristen Stewart’s Timlin is the only interesting character in the film, an eerie allude with stammering voice and body language who is awakened by Tenser and Caprice’s performance, but this movie doesn’t. know what to do with her, and like so many other things here she is simply discarded after a while. Earlier rumors about the movie promised premieres, and there were indeed a few screenings at my screening, but who can be sure they were motivated by disgust? must be tedious?
