Crimes of the Future (Movie)

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    Forget Grotesque Sights. David Cronenberg Does Grotesque Desires.

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    “The Shrouds,” the director’s latest, underlines the central difference between his films and all the “body horror” that has come in their wake.In David Cronenberg’s newest film, “The Shrouds,” a widower named Karsh Relikh, played by Vincent Cassell, takes a woman on a blind date to his dead wife’s grave. They stop in front of her tombstone — a double plot, with empty space for Karsh to occupy in the future — and pay their respects in a very Cronenbergian way. On a screen on the headstone is a real-time image of his wife’s body, decaying in its grave, captured by the high-tech metallic “shroud” she was buried in; it is also transmitted to a smartphone app that allows Karsh to zoom and rotate the image at will. This technology allows people to remain connected to their loved ones by watching their bodies disintegrate, like a mash-up of the Buddhist corpse meditation and a mindfulness app. “I can see what’s happening to her,” Karsh says, enraptured, as his date squirms in discomfort. “I’m in the grave with her. I’m involved with her body the way I was in life, only even more.”You know what you are about to be shown: a body in some state of decay. But as the screen traces the desiccated shape of Karsh’s wife, Becca, with tender slowness, the effect is still irrationally startling. Death has rendered Becca’s elegant features down to an anonymized skull. Even so, there is someone on the screen whom Karsh recognizes and responds to at the deepest emotional level. You feel disgust, of course, but also a secondhand intimacy. What’s shocking is not the rotting body but the affection with which it is viewed, a tenderness that allows you to continue looking. You are not encountering death in the abstract, impersonal and horrific: You are seeing it anew, through the devoted gaze of the lover who has been left behind.These days there is nothing so shocking about seeing gruesome things on film. Horror movies are now mainstream, and it’s common for at least a few of the biggest releases at any given megaplex to offer some kind of grisly fright. Violence is also more common than ever on the screens of our laptops and phones, where social media catalogs accidents, bombings and dead children with eerie nonchalance. Despite all this, Cronenberg’s films remain difficult to digest. They are full of disconcerting bodily transgressions, rooted in aberrant desire. They get under the skin, repulsing even viewers accustomed to the usual Hollywood blood and gore. His last film, “Crimes of the Future,” from 2022, prompted one dissatisfied reviewer to write that it “should be renamed crimes against humanity.”Perhaps this is because of the way Cronenberg’s movies tend to relish the things that are most terrifying to the audience. Other horror films share the viewer’s repugnance, even reinforce it; only Cronenberg asks you to imagine what it would be like to be erotically transfixed by a car crash (as in “Crash”) or by tenderly performing ornamental surgeries on your partner (as in “Crimes of the Future”). His films invite you into a morality that does not yet exist, hinting at the possibility that the values and norms of your world could be supplanted someday. In a recent interview, he pointed out that we already possess the technical know-how to make something like his fictional death shrouds: “It’s an imagined technology probably nobody really wants, but I’m saying: What if somebody did want it?” Rather than dwelling in the horror of transgression, his interest is in what lies beyond — in transgression’s intimate life.Lately it feels as if movies are more Cronenbergian than ever, obsessed with triggering our fear of the body’s capacity for gruesome transformation. “The Substance,” a hit from the French director Coralie Fargeat, served up the story of an aging actress who creates a younger, sexier double of herself to stay on top of her body-obsessed industry — but suffers a rapid and freakish decrepitude when the double decides to go rogue. “Mickey 17,” a science-fiction romp from the Oscar winner Bong Joon Ho, follows a high-risk worker who is used as an experimental guinea pig, then cloned and tossed ruthlessly down a recycling chute. In each, we see bodies agonizing under the burden of a monstrous social system.‘It’s an imagined technology probably nobody really wants, but I’m saying: What if somebody did want it?’We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Best Genre Movies of 2022

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      We look at the best in horror, science fiction, action and international films, all available to stream.Ready to go some gooey or gory places? Or see an expert performer navigate action films in an original way? Or perhaps you’d like to explore two knockout docs from around the world? Our genre movie streaming columnists have made their picks for the best of the year. Some movies you will have heard of. Others will be new to your view. Either way, prepare to head out on adventure with these across-the-spectrum offerings.Science FictionFor David Cronenberg, the call is always coming from inside the house: It is the body that attacks, betrays, seduces, takes over. Impervious to the subjects agitating current science-fiction movies (alternative universes, artificial intelligence, a dying Earth), the Canadian director went back to familiar turf with his latest, in which people mutate in unpredictable ways. Cronenberg has always known that the true frontier is not space but the evolution of flesh, consciousness and machine.In “Crimes of the Future,” Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen) keeps growing new tumors that his acolyte, Caprice (Léa Seydoux), excises in public, via a repurposed autopsy device. The visual effects are not much more sophisticated than those in the director’s similarly themed “Videodrome” (1983) and “Existenz” (1999), but the squishy organic feel is exactly what makes the new film stand out from run-of-the-mill C.G.I. fests. That and, of course, its tone, coldly detached and darkly comic, as exemplified by Kristen Stewart’s deliciously arch turn as a fan of Tenser’s body artistry.“Everyone wants to be a performance artist these days,” we are told, and the movie zeros in on our narcissism, need for attention and terminal cynicism. Beyond the gross-out close-ups of puckering organs, what is most striking here is a rare cinematic quality nowadays: perversity. — ELISABETH VINCENTELLIStream “Crimes of the Future” on Hulu.HorrorRegina Lei in “The Sadness.”Fredrick Liu/Machi Xcelsior Studios/Shudder/AMCMy favorite horror movies this year laid off the flashy effects and instead gave me the unshakable willies the unshowy way: with creeping dread and uncertain stillness. That’s how “Watcher,” “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” and “The Innocents” did it.But oh man, “The Sadness.” Rob Jabbaz’s transgressive zombie film was bombastically directed and exhaustingly gory — in other words, the year’s most gloriously brutal horror-watching experience.The Projectionist Chronicles a New Awards SeasonThe Oscars aren’t until March, but the campaigns have begun. Kyle Buchanan is covering the films, personalities and events along the way.Golden Globe Nominations: Here are some of the most eyebrow-raising snubs and surprises from this year’s list of nominees.Gotham Awards: At the first official show of the season, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” won big.Governors Awards: Stars like Jamie Lee Curtis and Brendan Fraser worked a room full of academy voters at the event, which is considered a barometer of film industry enthusiasm.Rian Johnson:  The “Glass Onion” director explains the streaming plan for his “Knives Out” franchise.It’s set in Taipei, where two young lovers (Berant Zhu and Regina Lei) fight to reunite after a contagion turns people into sexually voracious flesh destroyers. The carnage almost never lets up, and it’s jaw-dropping to watch — like when the hungry infected turn a crowded subway car into a preposterously blood-slick Slip ‘N Slide. This scene, like the film overall, is demented and repulsive but also — and here’s the curveball — uncompromisingly feminist. It’s not easy to get a message across when the mayhem surrounding it is this maximalist, but Jabbaz figured it out.Listen to me carefully: If you’re at all iffy about being grossed out, stay away from this film. But if your constitution is solid, I dare you to jump into its exquisitely gruesome, grimly satirical maelstrom. — ERIK PIEPENBURGStream “The Sadness” on Shudder.ActionZoë Kravitz in “KIMI.”Warner Bros.Between Matt Reeves’ gripping neo-noir “The Batman” and Steven Soderbergh’s unnerving surveillance thriller “KIMI,” this year the actress Zoë Kravitz ruled the action genre. Her reign is uniquely impressive when one considers the disparate requirements of each role.As Selina Kyle/Catwoman in “The Batman,” the agile, shadowy equal to the caped crusader, she moves with a slender yet muscular physicality. As seen in her knowing runway stride, sultry possibilities become real and hand-to-hand confrontations are rendered acrobatic as Kravitz gracefully leaps and dives against thugs.Playing Angela, a blue-haired tech employee confined to her home office in “KIMI,” the actress turns in her former fluidity for an antisocial rigidity as she becomes the target of a predatory company intent on covering up the crime she discovered. In contrast to the skintight leather suit she wears as Catwoman, Kravitz packs a different but no less formidable punch in her long loose coat as she evades her pursuers during a series of arresting chase scenes.And yet, what binds these seemingly conflicting performances is how Kravitz’s expressive eyes translate the assuredness of Catwoman and the savviness of Angela. They’re a confirmation of her range as today’s premiere Black woman action hero. — ROBERT DANIELSStream both “The Batman” and “KIMI” on HBO Max.InternationalYoung residents of Paris’s suburbs in the documentary “We (Nous).”MubiEvery month, as I compile international films for my column, I am confronted with the arbitrariness of the boundaries that determine what we consider familiar and foreign, the home and the world. My two favorite films this year, both documentaries by women, challenge these delineations. In “A Night of Knowing Nothing” by Payal Kapadia, a fictional voice-over narration, chronicling the dissolve of the speaker’s inter-caste relationship, coalesces a series of twilit scenes of college life in India that range from nocturnal revels to protests against an increasingly repressive government. Culminating with CCTV footage of baton-wielding police descending upon a library full of students, the film shatters the fictions of democracy: The will of the people means little to the weapons of the state.In Alice Diop’s “We,” a train route that connects Paris’s suburbs to the city center forms the spine for the film’s intimate, itinerant glimpses of the working-class immigrants who live on the outskirts of France’s capital. Diop’s cinematic map bursts the contours of French identity and recenters them around those relegated to its margins.Each film, a whole fashioned from disparate pieces, offers an allegory for the nation itself, as a collective forged out of solidarity rather than superficial similarities. — DEVIKA GIRISHStream “A Night of Knowing Nothing” on the Criterion Channel. Stream “We” on Mubi. More

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      ‘Crimes of the Future’ Review: The Horror, the Horror

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      In his latest shocker, David Cronenberg prophetically reads the signs while Léa Seydoux performs surgeries on a beatific Viggo Mortensen.Few filmmakers slither under the skin and directly into the head as mercilessly as David Cronenberg. For decades, he has been unsettling audiences, derailing genre expectations and expanding the limits of big-screen entertainment with exploding heads, gasping wounds and desiring, suffering, metamorphosing bodies. A modern-day augur, he opens up characters — psychically and physically — with a detached cool and scalpel-like cinematic technique, exploring what lies (and festers) inside as he divines prophetic meaning.His latest, “Crimes of the Future,” is very tough and creepy, yet improbably relaxed; it’s a low-key dispatch from the end of the world. Set in an indeterminate future, it centers on a pair of artists — Viggo Mortensen as Saul, Léa Seydoux as Caprice — who mount surgeries as performances. With Saul lying supine in a biomorphic apparatus as viewers gaze from the sidelines, Caprice — using a multicolored controller — delicately probes Saul’s viscera, removing mysterious new organs that have grown inside his body. The audience members are quiet, attentive, respectful (moviegoers might yelp); for his part, Saul looks ecstatic.The movie takes place in a depopulated waterfront city where the carcasses of rusted, barnacle-covered ships languish on the shore. There, in shadowy streets and derelict buildings, men and women roam, often without apparent purpose, as if heavily medicated or perhaps blasted by that collective devastation called reality. There’s a disconcerting, characteristically Cronenbergian lack of affect to most of them — few experience pain anymore — even when they’re carving one another up in dark corners or in performances. Times have changed, but the human appetite for violence and spectacle remain intact.The story emerges incrementally in scenes that seem to drift even as they lock into place. In between performances and shoptalk, Saul and Caprice are drawn into overlapping intrigues involving a dead child and an inner-beauty pageant. An amusing Kristen Stewart shows up with Don McKellar in a decrepit office that once could have been used by Philip Marlowe, but now has the disquieting words “National Organ Registry” inscribed on the front door. There’s also a cop (Welket Bungué) who skulks around with Saul in the shadows, where the dead child’s father (Scott Speedman) lurks enigmatically.For the most part, the world in “Crimes of the Future” resembles what you imagine everyday life might look like in a not-too-distant future, one defined by need, decay, violence, extreme entertainment and environmental catastrophes of our own wretched making. It is terrible, and eerily familiar. But Cronenberg doesn’t pass judgment on it or shake his fist at the sky. Instead, with visual precision, arid humor, restrained melancholia and a wildly inventive vision of tomorrow that puts those of most movie futurists to shame, he reveals a world that can be agony to look at, exposing its pulpy innards much like Caprice opens up Saul.Mortensen and Seydoux are the conjoined heart and soul of “Crimes of the Future,” and they imbue the movie with waves of feeling, appreciably warming the overall chill. His eyebrows seemingly shaved and face often obscured by a scarf, Saul presents a curious figure, one who’s at once an artist, ninja and religious ascetic. Although his hands and feet look undamaged, the placement of the cables on his appendages — as well as the many cuts that Caprice makes on his body during their performances — evoke stigmata, the wounds of the crucified Christ. And Saul does suffer, clearly, but for whom? For him, Caprice, us?“Crimes of the Future” is about a lot of things, including desire and death, pain and pleasure, transformation and transcendence. Saul is its centerpiece. You first see him at home in bed, a structure that hangs from the ceiling like a suspended cradle. It’s striking, but what really catches the eye are the bed’s cables, medical tubing that look like elephant trunks and are attached to Saul’s pale, bare hands and feet. The bottom of each cable resembles a small webbed hand, a distinctly anthropomorphic vision that makes it seem as if he were being cared for by an extraterrestrial nanny.The attentiveness of Saul’s care, including from Caprice, makes a painful contrast with the horrific indifference shown to the movie’s one child (Sotiris Siozos). “Crimes of the Future” begins with the murder of this child; it’s a visceral, distressing jolt that will drive at least some moviegoers out of the theaters. Opening a story with a shock of violence is an obvious way to kick-start events, create intrigue, hook the audience. We are used to it. The murder of a child, though, is more unsettling than most screen violence. That’s partly because of its horror, but also because — while movies show us many ghastly things — they like to package violence, sex it up, make it cinematic. They resist showing us at our real and abject worst.In strictly functional terms, the murder serves as a red flag — a kind of trigger warning for the movie audience — an announcement of intent or at least narrative limits. Cronenberg is, I think, telegraphing what kind of movie you’re about to watch: He will not be taking any prisoners or blunting the story’s edges. The murder is genuinely awful and it rocks you to the core, creating a low, unwavering thrum of deep unease that remains intact through the disparate narrative turns and tone shifts. Most movies that deploy violence tidy it up with empty outrage and vacuous moralizing; here, the violence haunts you.In its themes, body work and convulsions of violence, “Crimes of the Future” evokes some of Cronenberg’s other films, notably “Videodrome,” a shocker about (among other things) a man who loses his mind. This new movie feels more melancholic than many of the earlier ones, though perhaps I’m the one who’s changed. Once again, people are evolving and devolving, mutating into something familiar yet also something different and terrifying. Yet despite the morbid laughs and the beatific smile that can light up Saul’s face like that of St. Teresa of Ávila, “Crimes of the Future” feels like a requiem. Cronenberg has always been a diagnostician of the human condition; here, he also feels a lot like a mortician.Crimes of the FutureRated R for filicide, surgeries and power-drill violence. Running time: 1 hour 47 minutes. In theaters. More

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      Which Cannes Films Have the Best Oscar Odds?

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      Movies from Park Chan-wook, Lukas Dhont and Hirokazu Kore-eda could be what academy voters are looking for. But don’t count out “Top Gun: Maverick.”CANNES, France — Last year at the Cannes Film Festival, there was one question on everybody’s lips: “What’s the next ‘Parasite’?” You can see why people wondered, since that Bong Joon Ho film had used its Palme d’Or win to jump-start a historic Oscar campaign.But if last year’s festival had an heir to “Parasite,” it proved to be a very unlikely one.Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s talky drama “Drive My Car” didn’t win the Palme d’Or (it settled for a best-screenplay honor) and wasn’t anyone’s idea of the biggest contender coming out of Cannes. Still, after year-end critics’ groups went for it in a major way, “Drive My Car” picked up huge Oscar nominations for picture, directing and adapted screenplay in addition to one for best international film, the category it won.So as this year’s Cannes nears its end with no one film standing head and shoulders above the rest, I think that rather than searching for the next “Parasite,” it would be wiser to ask: What’s the next “Drive My Car”? In other words, which movie from this year’s Cannes crop could keep on building buzz and capitalize on the academy’s growing international user base to snag major Oscar nominations?I see three notable contenders. Foremost among them is “Close,” which is hotly tipped to pick up a major award at the fest on Saturday. It’s the second feature from the Belgian director Lukas Dhont, and it follows two 13-year-old boys as their intense friendship begins to unravel. Some crucial reviews in Variety and IndieWire have been notably mixed, calling out one of the film’s melodramatic plot twists, but Oscar voters have never minded melodrama — in fact, they often crave it, and the most ardent fans of “Close” consider it to be the four-hankie entry of the festival. A24 bought the film on the eve of its premiere, so expect a robust fall push.The South Korean director Park Chan-wook deserved Oscar notice for his twisty 2016 masterpiece “The Handmaiden,” and though his new Cannes film “Decision to Leave” isn’t quite on that level, it’s still a well-directed affair that could see plenty of awards attention. A Hitchcockian romantic thriller, “Decision to Leave” stars Park Hae-il as a detective investigating a murdered man’s widow (Tang Wei) who, in her own femme fatale way, seems to welcome the stakeout. After the explicit sex scenes of “The Handmaiden,” it’s surprising how chaste the director’s follow-up is, but that may actually work to the movie’s favor with older Oscar voters.Our Coverage of the Cannes Film Festival 2022The Cannes Film Festival returns with its typical glitz, glamour and red-carpet looks, and with nearly 50 movies projected for the event.Politics and Grace: In Cannes, politics and polemics are always part of the movie mix. But there is still room for scenes of lyrical beauty.Oscar Odds: Which movie from the Cannes crop could capitalize on the academy’s growing international user base to snag major nominations? There are three top contenders.David Cronenberg: The body-horror auteur shared some thoughts on aging and his new film “Crimes of the Future,” which premiered at the festival.‘Elvis’: Baz Luhrmann brought the King to Cannes with a hyperventilated, fitfully entertaining and thoroughly deranged biopic.Ask a Cameraman: The festival is known for its elongated standing ovations. One of the men tasked with filming them explained what it takes to capture those moments.Hirokazu Kore-eda scored the Palme d’Or in 2018 for his sensitive drama “Shoplifters,” which went on to compete for the international-film Oscar; though it lost to the Netflix-funded juggernaut “Roma,” I suspect a film like “Shoplifters” would play better today and contend for more nominations across different categories. Keep an eye on Kore-eda’s “Broker,” then: This affectionate character study stars “Parasite” lead Song Kang Ho as one of two good-natured criminals who try to sell an abandoned baby. At times, the movie is so sweet that it verges on gooey, but I doubt the “CODA” wing of the academy will complain.Some other Cannes entries could pop up throughout awards season, including “Armageddon Time,” from the director James Gray, about a middle-class Jewish family whose progressive attitudes mask a willingness to climb a few rungs at the expense of those less privileged. Gray is well-liked in France and may pick up a trophy here, but Oscar voters have yet to break for him in any significant way. Stars Anne Hathaway, Jeremy Strong, and Anthony Hopkins will at least attract attention.Vicky Krieps should already have one Oscar nomination under her belt for “Phantom Thread”: since she was snubbed then, perhaps voters could make it up to her for “Corsage,” in which she’s fun and spiky as the Empress Elisabeth of Austria. I’d also be pleased if critics’ groups rally behind Léa Seydoux as a single mother attempting a tricky romance in Mia Hansen-Love’s “One Fine Morning,” my favorite entry of the festival.Seydoux is also quite good in David Cronenberg’s “Crimes of the Future,” where she stars opposite Viggo Mortensen and Kristen Stewart, but the film may prove too out-there for awards voters; ditto “Triangle of Sadness,” from “The Square” director Ruben Ostlund, though that class comedy does provide some of the most gonzo gross-out sequences of the year and contains a memorable supporting turn from Woody Harrelson.Léa Seydoux and Viggo Mortensen in “Crimes of the Future.”Nikos Nikolopoulos/NeonWhat about the expensive Hollywood movies that premiered at Cannes? “Elvis” hails from the director Baz Luhrmann, who managed an Oscar breakthrough with “Moulin Rouge” but whose last film, “The Great Gatsby,” earned nominations only for its costumes and production design. The glittery “Elvis” seems likely to continue that trend: Reviews have been polarizing, and though up-and-comer Austin Butler impresses as Elvis Presley, young hunks usually face an uphill battle in the lead-actor category. (And the less said about the misbegotten supporting performance from Tom Hanks as Elvis’s manager, the better.)The last time George Miller was at Cannes, he premiered “Mad Max: Fury Road,” which went on to earn 10 Oscar nominations (including picture and director) and ultimately picked up six statuettes. Action movies rarely fare that well with Oscar, but Miller broke the mold, and he’s made something else unique with “Three Thousand Years of Longing,” his new film about a djinn (Idris Elba), a scholar (Tilda Swinton) and the unique love that blooms between them. It’s got drama, fantasy, romance, comedy … and you’ll either thrill to all of that, or find it a bit overstuffed. The tech elements of the film deserve notice, but other categories could be a long shot.And then there’s “Top Gun: Maverick,” which launched on the Croisette with a flyby from fighter jets and an opaque conversation with star Tom Cruise. This long-in-the-making sequel is earning stellar reviews and it’s expertly directed. If the academy really wants to push well-done blockbuster material into the best picture race, this could be the summer’s strongest hope. “Drive My Fighter Jet,” anyone? More