MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY FILM INQUIRER

The master of body horror is back in his first feature length film since 2014’s Maps to the Stars and his first body horror film since 1999’s eXistenZ. In today’s sanitised and sexless films, Crimes of the Future feels like a triumph. It’s a film where surgery scenes are filmed and shot with intimacy. It’s odd, fascinating, and undeniably Cronenberg.

Crimes of the Future is set in a semi-transhumanist future where most people no longer feel pain. In this world, it’s commonplace for people to perform surgery on themselves. Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen) has Accelerated Evolution Syndrome and is sprouting organs in his body. He and his partner Caprice (Léa Seydoux) have turned this into a spectacle. In fact, they have turned surgery, which bureaucrat Timlin (Kristen Stewart) describes in one scene as ‘the new sex’, into an art form. Cronenberg complements this idea with his shot composition and direction of the actors’, and their characters’, performances. When nearly nobody can feel vulnerable physically anymore, Saul’s emotional vulnerability is theatre. There are more plot points, but I will refrain from sharing them. This film is an experience better entered into blind.

Besides, the plot isn’t as important as the overall feel of the film, which is simultaneously intimate and uncomfortable. Channelling the feeling of Cronenberg’s best films like Videodrome (1983) and Naked Lunch (1991), Crimes of the Future feels like a symphony of body horror, turning the grotesque into the beautiful. Despite some pacing issues at the end, no scene is boring, and one comes away from the film feeling like it is conceptually brilliant.

Admittedly, I didn’t think much of Kristen Stewart before watching this film, but her performance is a stand-out. Her character is odd, even autistic in energy, but always commands one’s attention whenever she’s on the screen. The Academy probably won’t recognise it, but if there was any justice in this world, it would be the performance Oscars are made for.

Ultimately, Crimes of the Future is a joy to watch, plunging the audience into a grotesque heart of darkness. It won’t appeal to everyone, but for those who are curious about body horror and twisted transhumanist tales, I could not recommend it more.

From today, Crimes of the Future can be found screening exclusively at Cinema Nova in Carlton. In addition to discount prices on Mondays – $7 before 4 pm and $10 afterwards – University of Melbourne students can also access the same prices every Wednesday with a valid student ID.

For our MIFF review of Crimes of the Future by Lucy Beltrami, click here.