Crimes of the Future
David Cronenberg's latest body horror is a kooky, overwrought mess that isn't nearly as shocking as it thinks it is.
The one thing you could always say about David Cronenberg movies is that they are never boring. The director behind “Naked Lunch,” “Dead Ringers” and “Crash” has a way of exploring the icky in-between spaces of horror and science fiction in a compelling way, especially what has come to be known as “body horror,” or stories fascinated with the alteration/control/mutilation of the human form.
The man knows how to shock.
I wouldn’t say that “Crimes of the Future,” his first feature film in 10 years, is exactly dull. What it is is weird for weirdness’ sake, a kooky and rambling narrative about a dystopia where people don’t really wash or have sex anymore, but instead cut their bodies open in public surgeries/performance art that attract a fetishistic following.
You may have heard the reports that “Crimes” purportedly caused waves of audience members to flee the theater in disgust. This sort of detail is gleefully pushed by marketing departments to build hype for twisted types who are into repulsive gore and yuck. I’m one of those, and am invariably disappointed — as I was here.
If just pure bloody cringe is what you seek, I’ll just say there’s nothing in this movie that even made me look away momentarily. There’s a whole lot of slicing of flesh, but it’s mostly done by crazy-looking robot arms with the help of computer-generated effects.
Supposedly the film also received a six-minute standing ovation at the Cannes festival, at least by those that remained. Frankly, I find both the adulation and repulsion to be grossly overstated.
Cronenberg actually made another film with the same title in 1970 that explored some similar themes, including having a famous performance artist named Saul Tenser who spontaneously grows new organs in his body. In this version he is played by Viggo Mortensen, and has his extra bits removed in underground shows by his partner/lover, Caprice (Léa Seydoux), a former trauma surgeon.
Like much of the Cronenberg oeuvre, there’s a fascination with devices that caress or cut the body, which always have a vaguely wet, reptilian look. Saul sleeps in a pod-like bed with creature-ish arms attached to him, and eats his meals in a strange highchair seemingly made of bones that moves him about in undulating maneuvers of uncertain purpose.
When he goes out into the world, which is a futuristic dystopia sparely populated by people wandering between dilapidated buildings, Saul cloaks himself in a black robe and hood, shuffling about in a limping manner like a dyspeptic, aged Sith Lord. Mortensen emits all his dialogue in gurgling strangles, as if having trouble breathing and swallowing.
A new government bureau has opened to register the growth of new organs, so Saul and Caprice are compelled to pay them a visit. The National Organ Registry, despite the ambitious name, seems to consist of just two bureaucratic drones in a cluttered office, Wippet (Don McKellar) and Timlin (Kristen Stewart).
It soon becomes clear they’re just as intrigued by Saul’s surgery shows as anyone else, and may have even just gotten these jobs so they can indulge their secret delights. They visit his latest performance, with Timlin whispering in his ear, “Surgery is the new sex.”
Stewart’s performance is the one thing in the movie that positively quivers with energy, as she sidles up to Saul with a lascivious stare and the vibe of that creepy scary/sexy girl in high school.
She also has the unfortunate tendency to deliver her dialogue in urgent whispers, as she did in “Spencer.” I must confess that between Mortensen’s croaking and Stewart’s purring, I had a great deal of trouble comprehending a lot of their dialogue.
Add in the heavy international accents from Seydoux and Welket Bungué, who plays a police detective Saul is secretly working with, and this all-English movie could have sorely benefited from subtitles.
Saul and Caprice also encounter Lang (Scott Speedman), a mournful father of a young boy named Brecken who dies horrendously in the opening minutes. He has an idea of how to use the Sark, a special autopsy chair they’ve adapted for their medical performances, with Brecken’s remains to take their art to a whole new boundary-pushing level.
The entire detective story part of the film is a total distraction. I think “Crimes of the Future” would’ve been much more interesting if they’d just stuck with the fascination of strange bodies, why it motivates people in this world and how they’ve replaced the commune of sex with slicing and dicing their skin.
In our own time, people use their bodies as a canvas to paint upon a persona in the stead of an actual personality — tattoos, dyed hair, pierced protuberances, painted nails, liposuctioned torsos, implanted boobs, slathered makeup, and so on. We’ve become so obsessed with shaping our outward appearance that we’ve neglected to nurture the souls inside.
That’d be something interesting to explore. But “Crimes of the Future” doesn’t go that far, instead content to tempt us with a few gross scenes, a halfhearted crime investigation and a whole lot of look-at-me voyeurism.
Despite all the evisceration and exposing of internal organs, this film never gets more than skin deep. The only thing I was shocked by was how un-shocking it is.