Pain is the ultimate pleasure and surgery the new sex in David Cronenberg’s latest provocation, a throwback to his squeamish body-horrors that shocked and delighted NZIFF audiences decades ago.
It’s marvelous to have Cronenberg back and to behold his undimmed, unparalleled skill at welding the formulations of horror and science fiction to the cinema of ideas.
Screened as part of NZIFF 2022
Crimes of the Future 2022
“Fresh from Cannes, where it had audiences laughing, squirming and – yikes! – thinking, the sci-fi spellbinder Crimes of the Future is the first film in eight years from Canadian hellraiser David Cronenberg…
Set in a future without cars, cellphones and untreatable pain, the film labels surgery as the new sex. Recovery is fast and wounds easily heal. Saul Tenser, played by a compellingly committed Viggo Mortensen, has made performance art out of going under the knife with the help of his partner and personal surgeon Caprice (Léa Seydoux)… Mortensen interprets Saul as a dark-robed human guinea pig whose body is used to grow previously unknown organs that Caprice surgically harvests – to tumultuous applause, of course. That’s when Kristen Stewart – mesmeric as ever – starts nosing around as Timlin, a member of the National Organ Registry, a government agency created to stop dangerous organ mutations. But in the age of Accelerated Evolution, Timlin finds herself in thrall to Saul’s dark magic…
Cronenberg wrote the script for Crimes of the Future 20 years ago, but his insinuations about government control over the human body play as timely and terrifying… Pushing 80, his reputation as a world-class visionary remains indisputable and undiminished… One thing is for damn sure: the future isn’t a far-off concept – the future is now.” — Peter Travers, ABC News