Some people like to pop their pimples. It is easy to understand the appeal: they’re unsightly, uncomfortable and there is odd satisfaction when they pop – the release of pressure, the control we assert over our bodies. There are reality TV shows, YouTube channels and subreddits devoted to popping them. Crimes of the Future, the new body horror film from David Cronenberg, is a feature-length celebration of that odd satisfaction. The characters do a lot more than pop pimples, and it gives them more than satisfaction: they feel artistic and sexual fulfillment through surgery without anesthetic. Transgressive material like this is not new to Cronenberg, who made Crash and The Brood, although his approach has softened slightly. His latest can be wry, gentle and kind of romantic.
Romance is the best way to describe the relationship between Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen) and his partner Caprice (Léa Seydoux). At first, Cronenberg presents their partnership as a creative one. In a future where human physiology is evolving superfluous organs and no one feels pain, Tenser is a performance artist who has his organs removed in front of an audience, while Caprice operates the machine that cuts into his body. Away from the surgical theater, Caprice and Tenser talk and collaborate, pushing themselves to the corporeal limits, a silent agreement that requires erotic trust. The machines they use will be familiar to anyone who remembers eXistenZ: they look like grotesque fleshy skeletons, so when Mortensen and Seydoux lie together nude, there is dispassionate beauty to their bloody relaxation.
Crimes of the Future has more of a mood than a plot. The characters spend a lot of time chatting, a way for Cronenberg to build a competitive milieu where body modification is the rubric for artistic expression. He even leaves room for bad art: in one scene, a nude man whose body is covered in surgically attached ears performs modern dance, while another remarks that he can only hear through two of them. Absent any terror or suspense, this is languid film that plunges willing audiences into a wholly alien viewpoint: we cannot imagine the physical differences to this world, although the associated emotions with them are nothing new. Kristen Stewart plays Timlin, a bureaucrat who becomes obsessed with Tenser, and her arc has a ring of familiarity to it. Her obsession transitions into fixation, leading to a lengthy seduction scene where Tenser flatly refuses her. No matter how much our bodies change, the film drolly observes, manners have a role to play.
This push and pull between grotesque and familiar would not be possible without the dirty, post-apocalyptic look to the film. Cronenberg and his team envision an analog future where every interior is covered in grime and rust. Nothing is clean because, in a future without pain, there is no worry about infection so why bother worrying about sanitation? Many scenes involve Tenser skulking through the seemingly abandoned roads, clad in black robes, while the background features “sex scenes” where one lover cuts into another. By making this seem both forgotten and alien, Cronenberg once again unlocks our mind, drilling into our subconscious like a master manipulator. The highest compliment I can pay the film is that when two characters use a new orifice for oral sex, I can sort of see why that’s hot.
If you have made it this far into the review, you’re probably not too squeamish, and yet this kind of body horror requires some kind of public service announcement. On top of the surgery and copious blood-letting, the film features an autopsy and the murder of a child. Despite all that, Cronenberg films it in such a way that it is not immediately upsetting. Crimes of the Future has nothing to do with Eli Roth or “torture porn” because – aside from torture being physically impossible – Cronenberg keeps his camera at a distance, deliberately avoiding shock. For him, being more lurid or exploitive would cheapen his intellectual ambition. The performances are also not what you might expect from a traditional horror film. Mortensen’s performance is a mix of irony and vocal tics – he clears his throat constantly – while Seydoux speaks with the alluring conviction of a true believer. Unfortunately, Stewart is the weak link here. She speaks with the awkward breathiness that she brought to her role in Spencer, a gambit that does not jibe with her arc.
Crimes of the Future defies easy summary. Aside from avoiding genre convention, Cronenberg and his actors leave a lot that is open to interpretation. What do these new forms mean? What is he trying to say about us? I don’t think the film is a warning or a parable. Instead, it is more of a recalibration, an attempt to get us thinking about deeper, more uncomfortable questions we ignore at our own peril. The disturbing premise creates a space to explore what it means to be human, whether it’s in terms of what’s inside us or what we share with our loved ones. A lesser film would hammer those ideas into us, whereas Cronenberg prefers the cool elegance of a scalpel instead.
Photo of courtesy of NEON
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