During the Cannes Film Festival, Konbini shares his favorites with you. What is Future Crimes? The return of the great David Cronenberg is bound to be an event. For Cannes, of course, and for everyone. His last feature film, which had divided, Maps to the Stars, was released in 2015. Seven years later, the Canadian filmmaker returns to his first love, he who left body horror after eXistenZ in 2002, with Les Crimes du future. A film difficult to access at first glance, since it takes place in a visibly post-apocalyptic world where sex does not pass through our genitals, but through the mutilation (!) of an artist (Viggo Mortensen) who can, like some other humans, grow tumors that become organs. He joins forces with an artist surgeon (Léa Seydoux), who will tattoo his entrails before extracting them in artistic performances (!), and these will question their artistic gestures when a kid who can develop another type of organ arrives. Does it seem high to you? However, if you know Cronenberg’s cinema, you should find yourself there. Why is it good? It is the most autobiographical film by its director, the most critical of the cinema industry and of our current society, and the one that seems furthest from what we know of Cronenberg – when it’s quite the opposite. Let’s get to the point. The character of Saul, played by Viggo Mortensen, is Cronenberg’s avatar. He is an artist who offers carnal and organic works by drawing on his innermost being, and who falsely shocks critics. A man known for delivering acclaimed morbid performances. Aging, he suffers from creating so much and questions his relevance and the time he has left. Cronenberg constantly quotes his cinema in Les Crimes du futur. The desert setting of Athens is reminiscent of Le Festin nu. Giger-worthy crap technology is reminiscent of eXistenZ. The beauty of the interior of the bodies is reminiscent of False pretenses. The treatment of the child is reminiscent of Chromosome 3. The link between technology and the body, and the importance of body art (dear to the author), recall Videodrome. A short film, but which has the intelligence to go beyond these references. If the film was only about the director, it could be in vain. What challenges is the author’s reflection on the world in which we evolve. It’s not just Saul (or Cronenberg) who questions its relevance, the film also questions this world where only children seem to care about the survival of our species. It’s hard to explain, but this long -film is also deeply feminist, and queer in a way. Coming from an 80-year-old director, who wrote this script more than twenty years ago (the script was thought up at the time of Crash, which was released in 1996), it’s impressive. Finally, Future Crimes is a global reflection on the film industry. Cronenberg has fun denying it in an interview, but Hollywood’s harsh criticism seems to be at the heart of the project. An industry in which the Canadian has never really had a place, even less now. In terms of form, this results in a rather disconcerting minimalism. This does not mean that the staging does not contain its share of details and that the choices of setting are not significant, on the contrary. Cronenberg simply poses at the antipodes of overloaded montages where we find eight different frames within a scene. All with a duo of actors at the top of their game, in perfect sobriety. Crimes of the Future is a rich film, which will certainly be analyzed in the years to come. While he seems difficult to like because he is too cold, he is quite disconcertingly generous. What do we remember? The actress who stands out: Léa Seydoux, always as exemplary default: quite difficult to access for non-fans of the author A film that you will like if you liked: Crash by David Cronenberg, The Naked Lunch by David Cronenberg and Pretences by David Cronenberg It could have been called : Inside Out The quote to sum up the film: “A film that (literally) turns your guts upside down”
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