Crimes of the Future
Directed by David Cronenberg (2022)
Film Review by KM, Movie Lightbox
“Surgery is the new sex”. David Cronenberg’s dystopian sci-fi horror film featuring dauntless performances from Viggo Mortensen, Lea Seydoux and Kristen Stewart is a provocative take on transformations and mutations - on human body and its metamorphosis, on art and the artist.
Human evolution is at the core of Cronenberg’s film, with Saul Tenser’s (played by Viggo Mortensen) ability to constantly develop new vestigial organs, a condition called “accelerated evolution syndrome” to the majority of the population deficient of pain stimuli and susceptible to disease-causing organisms. Cronenberg fabricates a dystopian world aligned with the present dangers of human-environment interaction, of how humankind could eventually be forced to deal with the harsh conditions of Earth. Biomedical machines and devices, processed “candy bars” as staple food and adaptive formation of human organs, in Cronenberg’s world, these imagined dystopias stand out as a warning. On the human evolutionary sense, its a valid depiction in which the human adaptation process could not always lead into superior human qualities, but easily fluctuate into an undesirable trait, as with Saul Tenser’s case.
Cronenberg’s exploration on the relationship between the art and the artist and the purpose of performance art to challenge the conventions of traditional art appears contentious, as it presents a radical and conspicuous form of expression through removal of body organs and some other forms of grotesque surgeries with extensive meaning or purpose. Throughout the film, there’s an unabating question on whether these performance artists like Caprice (played by Lea Seydoux) and Saul have learned to be slaves of their own art, submissive to either meaning or purpose of live surgical performances. With each staging, Cronenberg’s vision is elevated by Howard Shore’s haunting score and the film’s production design. The film challenges our presumptions on art and how we perceive them, taking its audience on the mystery of what is truly a meaningful art: is it through concept or execution?
Crimes of the Future is now playing in select theatres.