Surgery is the New Sex
The Canadian King of Venereal Horror, David Cronenberg, puts the perfectly bewildering capstone to his legacy of gross, mind-bending body horror with his latest feature Crimes of the Future. At once an exploration of the horrors of the post-post-modern human evolutionary track and a not-too-subtle cry for radical environmentalism, the 79-year old director’s latest stroke of squeamish cinema is a fitting encapsulation of the creator’s entire demented body of work.
As if surgically constructed from the wares of his past obsessions, Cronenberg extracts liberally from his own extensive library of the macabre. At the heart of the film, the Baron of Blood tinkers with the fascination with surgery that haunted Dead Ringers, the sexual kinkiness of Crash, the perturbing corporeal transformations and body horror of The Fly, and the analog-based, techno-skeletal, futuristic hardware of eXistenZ. All his favorite fetishes have come out to play.
Cronenberg has also brought back long-time collaborator Viggo Mortensen in the pole position, their fourth work together following A History of Violence, Eastern Promises, and A Dangerous Method. Crimes of the Future marks both the first time Mortensen has appeared in a proper Cronenberg horror joint (indisputably the genre the auteur is best known for) and their first reunion in over a decade.
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In the film, Mortensen is Saul Tenser (a protagonist name with an appropriately meaty mouth-feel). Alongside partner Caprice (Léa Seydoux), the duo exact a form of performance art that involves first tattooing internal organs and then surgically extracting those organs in front of a captivated crowd. This feat is made possible by the fact that some humans have begun to evolve in new and extreme manners, often by growing unwelcome new extremities. Or, in Saul Tenser’s case, additional organs.
[READ MORE: Our review of the excellent ‘Possessor‘ from David Cronenberg’s son Brandon Cronenberg]
In the world of Cronenberg’s future, society has lost the ability to feel pain. Back alley surgeries are performed as a way to quite literally kill time or bond in romantic kinship. As Kristen Stewart’s mousy Timlin appropriately puts it, “Surgery is the new sex.” This leads to a sociological obsession with the metamorphic process of corporeal transformation. Self-mutilation is all the rage. But only some are respected enough to be considered artists like Caprice and Saul Tenser. From the organs of the phoenix rises perform art. So it goes.
The expansive if flawed script reveals how different sections of the culture fawn over the celebrity of artists like Saul Tenser, bringing him and Caprice into contact with a network of colleagues and admirers who want to insert themselves into their process and help steer the future of their art form. Some want to exploit their work for political purposes. Others hold more nefarious (and obfuscated) goals.
Not every subplot bears the same fruit – Saul Tenser’s association with a vice detective (Welket Bungué) from the shadowy – and pretty inexplicable – Crimes Against the Future department stands out as awkwardly expository and churns the momentum of the film to a half. The third act in general struggles to tie together the many disparate character arcs, although the final inspired image nearly makes up for the sloppiness involved in clearing the finish line.
Mapping the chaos inside is central to the ideas presented in Crimes of the Future, as Cronenberg explores the future of humanity through the lens of needing to radically transform existing systems and habits. All in a very visceral, tongue-in-cheek manner, as is his nature. There is nonetheless an earnestness to Cronenberg’s environmentalist plight that complicates his somewhat sardonic assessment of performance art. Much like Saul Tenser, perhaps not stopping to think – to just do – was the pollution that prevented some semblance of inner peace. Another viewing might bring more clarity but it’s no stretch to see that this is clearly the musings of a man looking back at a career splashed with blood and wondering what it all meant.
Mortensen’s phlegmy turn as Saul Tenser makes for a guttural performance, loaded with throat-clearing and death bed whispers that you nearly never see erupt from a leading man. It’s off-putting in a very real, gerontophobic way. Trapped alongside Saul Tenser for nearly every second of the film’s 107-minute runtime, even the less tuned-in audience member will find themselves squirming a bit, dwelling on their own ailments and – ultimately – mortality. Saul Tenser seems to be a cipher for Cronenberg himself and though it would be tragic to see the man lay down his hat as a director, it’s hard to think of a more fitting ending to his career.
CONCLUSION: The naturally unnatural world comes to a head in surreal, erotic, satirical fashion in a way only David Cronenberg could cook up. The world-building of Crimes of the Future impresses more than some of the plot movements but a game Viggo Mortensen helps keep this ethereal body horror think-piece captivating from gory start to evocative finish.
B+
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By: Matt Oakes
Started blogging about film in college when the university paper wouldn’t have him. Dislikes your consensus film Twitter favorites. Devotee of horror movies that make him die a little inside. Catches films at festivals when he can. Proud SFCS and OFCS member and Tomatometer-approved critic. Editor-in-chief of Silver Screen Riot.
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