Crimes Of The Future revisits ideas and iconography from David Cronenberg's past
The filmmaker enlists Viggo Mortensen, Lea Seydoux, and Kristen Stewart for a dreamlike meditation on sex, art, politics, and body horror

David Cronenberg has never been entirely kidding. Even with absurd company names like “The Somafree Institute of Psychoplasmics” (as seen in The Brood) or preposterous lines of dialogue like “Drink deep, or taste not, the plasma spring!” (bellowed by Jeff Goldblum in The Fly), the Canadian director’s love affair with scientific gobbledygook and body-driven weirdness often inspires a chuckle, followed by a “Wait, is he serious?” He’s never been more serious than with his latest, Crimes Of The Future.
This slow-paced, action-light film, which debuted at Cannes, is an unmoored, dreamlike meditation on the filmmaker’s recurrent topics: transgressive sex, art and politics, nightmarish visions of organic matter. It’s unclear when it takes place. It’s unclear where it takes place (though some building signs are in Greek for some reason). And it’s unclear just how much we’re supposed to take strictly as metaphor. Again, the question arises—is he serious?
Cronenberg’s A History Of Violence and Eastern Promises star Viggo Mortensen plays Saul Tenser, in eternal discomfort because his body is rebelling against him. Within him grow unnatural organs, which his partner Caprice (Léa Seydoux) removes during live performance art ceremonies. They live in an underground bunker, or maybe it’s a dried-out aqueduct, and Saul sleeps in what looks like a giant upside-down beetle. He eats in a contraption made from bones that jostles him around, supposedly to help him digest. Whenever he goes out, he wears a cloak like he’s about to sing backup for Enigma. Nothing about it makes a lick of sense, but there’s a surreal flow to it all that, in the moment, carries you from scene to scene.
To spell out specific moments of the film’s very minimal plot would be pointless. You just kinda have to experience it yourself, and hope you connect with the vibe. Other characters that waft through include Wippet (Don McKellar, looking a bit like Canadian enfant terrible Jordan Peterson) and Timlin (Kristen Stewart, affecting an irritatingly hoarse speaking manner) who both work for the “National Organ Registry.” In this Future, where most humans have ceased experiencing pain, Tenser is not just an anomaly, but a celebrity for those anticipating the next step in human evolution.