Movie Breakdown: Crimes Of The Future
Pre-Screening Stance:
Crimes of the Future is not only David Cronenberg’s first film since 2014’s Maps to the Stars, but it would appear he’s back to his body horror ways. Neat! Let’s get icky.
Post-Screening Ramble:
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Crimes of the Future is a divisive affair. Set sometime in the future, the film largely follows a couple of performance artists – Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen) and Caprice (Léa Seydoux) – as they do their thing, which involves a live audience and her removing the new, exotic organs that his body produces. You’d think this would be a very underground kind of event, but the duo are pretty well known since the movie’s future-set humans have drifted away from the ability to feel pain, thus amateur surgeries and cosmetic procedures are all the rage.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be in a hurry to revisit Crimes of the Future, but I did like it. Writer/director David Cronenberg tosses out a variety of threads – the evolution of an artist, celebrity culture, how humanity is defined, and more – and while I’m not entirely sure he shapes any of them into something particularly defined, I thought he at least managed to keep things interesting. With that being said, I can see how some might consider the film to be too vague. Furthermore, the performances sort of fall into a similar designation. Mortensen and Seydoux portray weird, quirky artists that some may find to be too flat, but I felt like the duo did well to imbue them with an alluring amount of charm. Clearly, your mileage may vary.
If you’re in the mood for a heady, artsy film that will occasionally make you squirm, then Crimes of the Future is for you. If not, then maybe watch something else. The film lands in theaters today, June 3.
One Last Thought:
There’s a lot of gross moments in this movie, but the one thing that really put me off was the bizzaro chair that helps people eat correctly (or at least I guess that’s its main function?). It never once failed to gross me out whenever it made an appearance on the screen.
