Crimes of the Future (2022)
David Croneberg returns to bring us another beautifully crafted and twisted biomechanical film with a social political edge in
Crimes of the Future.
The film delves deep into the world of human evolution and where humanity finds itself in the unknown future where pain is now practically defunct.
The story revolves around a notorious art performer Saul Tenser, played by Viggo Mortensen, and Caprice , played by Lea Seydoux, as his personal surgeon and organ tattooist who produce live exhibitions that involve the graphic procedure of organ removal and replacement.
As the narrative progresses we're witness to the world around the two individuals with evolutionists , shady underground revolutionaries hide in decrepit buildings and shifty, quirky mechanics lurk in the shadows.
Thematically this film is everything you naturally associate with a auteur such as Cronenberg. Its showcases all the layers accustomed to one of Cinemas great original thinkers what with its erotic nature, its biomechanical substance and the continuing question of what does it really mean to be internally and externally Human. Social prejudices are continually brought up in his films and they continue to do so here.
Visually, the film has that restrained look that you ,not only associate with Cronenberg, but also David Lynch.
Interiors are rustic, dated and irregular in there furnishing. The surgical appliances have that biomechanical combination of something that seems to have lived at some point in the past whilst being visually arthropod in texture.
I find there's a odd tension throughout Cronenberg films that these objects will burst into life at some point.
Dialogue wise, for such a heavy conceptual film , there's understandably quite abit of exposition but it doesn't ruin the experience. Cronenberg's dialogue, for the most part, is fascinating so any expository dialogue is, not only much needed, but also engaging.
Overall, this is a film I've been in need of. It's so refreshing to see Cronenberg back in the game of producing thought provoking surreal entertainment which still seems highly original.
Throughout the last third of the film I was thinking how cinema will be a lessor place when Lynch and Cronenberg move on.
Recommended if you enjoy films such as : Videodrome, Eraserhead, Existenz and Tetsou The Iron Man.