Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: CRIMES OF THE FUTURE [Cannes Film Festival 2022]
The reality of David Cronenberg is that he tries to put the context of the body relevant to the matters of the real and the abstract with a sensibility of what his characters are trying to do. The characters are always motivated by their baser or primal nature which either numbs them to the process or makes them too connected where they can't see the line. "Crimes Of The Future" [Competition] is a perspective of that but places within it as usual a Cronenberg universe that has its own rules. A celebrity of performance art where surgery removes new organs on the basis of human evolution is the crux of the story with two characters in the guise of Viggo Mortensen and Lea Seydoux. They are a would-be team who are not quite lovers but definitely something more pushing the bounds of what it means to be alive. That said, it functions on the basis of the normality of this certain world.
A registration bureau with two disparate representatives played by a would be David Straitharn (actually Don McKeller) and a muted but very specifically directed Kristin Stewart move the idea of what it means to be connected. Sex takes on a different connotation here because people are looking for a new high. The action takes place within one town but it is a gothic construction motivated by thinking beds and the crux of gestation and digestion which has always been part of Cronenberg's body horror aesthetic. Stewart has the most diametric part but she is not in it as much.Seydoux is more center as an artist that finds the most emotional range. Mortensen is a mold of fluctuation that is most closely Cronenberg's muse but it is all about perspective of grunts and the corrolation between pain and pleasure.
The context is undeniable especially evolving a secondary plot which tends to ebb and flow regarding a evolution of digestion which takes on a very physical form and leads to the approach of ethics in a world (Cronenberg's) where the idea of what makes something disconnected versus connected takes on a whole new meaning, Granted this has to do with perception which is a different animal here simply because the same rules do not apply. The mood, especially with a repeating score, places you in the world without needing to spend too much money or maybe go too far. The film moves towards the line at two different parts but the expectation is there as much versus something like "Naked Lunch" which was way too advanced for its time. That said, "Crimes Of The Future" delivers on what it promises despite its intent to be something more baseline than transcendent. B+
By Tim Wassberg
