Crimes of the Future

Shades of post-apocalyptic horror, neo-noir, and environmental cautionary tale, but it’s all Cronenberg, baby. Tension is beautifully sustained by means of persistent violation - decay, dirt and disease - the gore becomes a welcome release, proving the point. It’s as intellectually brilliant as the moral is despairing. I’m in awe of Cronenberg applying his stamp of horror not just to the individual body, but to the Earth and our future, whole cloth. If surgery is the new sex, what are children?

David Cronenberg's Assholes With Arms in Them! Finding some new flesh in old bottles. Whenever you hear about a movie being shocking and there were people walking out in disgust its code for old people will walk into any movie and be surprised. K Stew forever.

Cronenberg returns to his roots in beautifully grotesque fashion. This is the Cronenbergiest Cronenberg film Cronenberg has Cronenberged in decades. I was loving the entire experience up until the ending blindsided me because I was certain there was still 30 minutes left. So many of its plot threads were left completely unresolved and character journeys left halfway finished that I expected to find that a Crimes of the Future Part 2 had already been announced even though that sounds ridiculous.

Here's a very tightly delineated story of evolution set in a post-human world, where Cronenberg's style manifests the same way Seydoux's removal of Mortensen's organs does: the grotesque subsumed by its musical/artistic quality. The audience is never really in danger as this is as sensual and dreamy as anything by Jean-Claude Brisseau. Silly at times, but also one of the essential films of this decade.

As my dad has always said, nothing good has ever come from performance art. It is funny that every year, there's a film that has people walking out of the theatre because of its grossness. Then I see it, and it's so tame.