Set in the future when the human pain threshold is so high people cut themselves to feel something, David Cronenberg’s return to body horror following eXistenZ in 1999 is a self-reflexive and otherworldly sci-fi noir that revisits the icky, fleshy visuals and eroticism of Videodrome and Crash. Viggo Mortensen plays Saul, a unique avant-garde artist who is able to grow new organs (or tumours) and collaborates with sultry frontwoman Caprice (Léa Seydoux) who performs explicit public surgery on his body.
A shocking crime sets the scene and opens the film to the central mystery that Saul gets drawn into by a cryptic detective played by Welket Bungué. Their secret meetings take place by the sea where a capsized ship sits ominously on the shore. Saul is sent to investigate Scott Speedman’s cult-like leader while also being investigated himself by the “National Organ Registry.”
In this grim and dystopian reality where humans are evolving to align with the extinction of pain and ecological decay, ‘surgery is the new sex’ according to Kristen Stewart’s timid yet desperately horny Organ Registry investigator, Timlin. She’s drawn to Saul’s work like a moth to a flame and Stewart’s performance strikes an appealingly amusing note of anxious, jittery fangirling.
In fact, Saul and Caprice are surrounded by curious fans including Timlin’s work partner Wippet (Don McKellar) and the sexy double act of Router (Nadia Litz) and Berst (Tanaya Beatty) who are candidly turned on by the grotesquely imagined sleeping devices (designed by long-time collaborator Carol Spier) that Saul rests in.
Crimes of the Future is quintessential Cronenberg; a sensual and disturbingly fascinating fever dream that re-evaluates the intersection of flesh and technology, and pain and pleasure, with a masterful and provocative eye. It may cover familiar ground, but the film has something compelling to say on the nature of filmmaking and how we consume art in the digital age.
Crimes of the Future is out in cinemas now. Read more reviews here.