Crimes of the Future (2022)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Crimes of the Future (2022) – D. Cronenberg

Aiming for, and occasionally attaining, the kind of transgressive feel that he achieved with Videodrome (1983), David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future lays out a possible reality where humans have evolved not to feel pain or to develop infections and some produce new unknown glands and organs in their bodies on a regular basis. Viggo Mortensen plays Saul Tenser who has turned his organ production into a vehicle for performance art: with the assistance of former “trauma surgeon” Caprice (Léa Seydoux), he has the new adaptations extracted from his body (using an antiquated “autopsy machine”) in front of an audience at various underground venues. Together, they have achieved a notoriety or fame that brings them to the attention of the New Vice Unit (Welket Bungué) and the National Organ Registry (Kristen Stewart and Don McKellar; she says that “surgery is the new sex”). At the same time, Tenser is approached by a secretive man, Lang Dotrice (Scott Speedman) creating purple candy bars who wants him to do a live autopsy of his son (who we earlier see eating a plastic rubbish basket). Eventually, it comes to light that he represents a rebellious group of plastic eaters who are pushing evolution into a direction not favoured by the authorities (but which sounds environmentally correct: eating the industrial waste that humans produce). Representatives of a company, LifeFormWare, that makes beds, chairs, and other furniture that are adapted to their owner’s physical being, are somehow invested in the outcomes of the collaboration between Tenser and Dotrice (but the film doesn’t clarify this). Overall, this is a dark film, both cinematographically and thematically, and it isn’t surprising that some viewers walked out of the premiere (most likely due to the graphic surgery scenes). But it feels funny that Cronenberg uses his big budget techniques for what might feel more edgy and “real” if low budget techniques were used (such as earlier in his career). Likely too, the film might be too slow for some, although scrambling to understand everything that Cronenberg’s very imaginative future holds, some of which remains unspoken, may occupy much of your time. Remembering the “ground rules” such as the fact that no one feels pain (except those who subversively seek it out) is an additional challenge. Worth a look, if you have a strong stomach.