REVIEW: New Film Crimes of The Future Reels An Apocalyptic Plastic-Digesting World
Crimes of the Future, the new sci-fi horror written and directed by David Cronenberg (The Dead Zone, Eastern Promises, eXistenZ) premiered at Cannes with a six-minute standing ovation. The futuristic body horror stars Viggo Mortensen, Léa Seydoux, Kristen Stewart, and Scott Speedman, produced by Robert Lantos, producers Panos Papahadzis, and Steve Solomos co-producer Laura Lanktree.
Crimes of the Future is not for those faint of heart, the film opens with a young boy in a destitute world who begins to devour a plastic trash can. His life is then taken by his mother who is appalled at his actions. This is pretty much where a few people are said to have walked out on the film during its premiere. The mother sees her son as ‘different’ and not worthy of life for whatever reason that is causing his odd disorder.
We soon learn that there is an uprising of insurgents that have organs that have been morphed to digest plastic bars for nourishment. They fabricate these bars in secret locations, made from industrial waste, and used as a survival mechanism in the increasingly decaying and toxic environment around them. One can’t help but think of present-day news headlines that state, small traces of plastic particles have been found in our bodies from water bottles and even beads in toothpaste. Kind of makes you think about how our real-life organs are actively adapting as we speak and it makes the film even creepier while sitting in your seat watching the film knowing you could have plastic inside your organs at that very moment.
Humans in this dystopic world can no longer feel pain and have begun operating on their bodies for sport, sexual pleasure, and art, using high-tech equipment. Saul Tenser and his ‘lover’ Caprice, played by Viggo Mortensen and Léa Seydoux are seen cutting into each other’s bodies with robotic blades at the center of underground performance art exhibits in beds called Sark modules. Saul has a unique medical issue, Accelerated Evolution Syndrome, where his body keeps growing organs and Caprice has to keep removing them for either his survival or because he is afraid of what he will become. He is seen having to eat in a special robotic chair that distorts his body in a way suspended up in the air, just to be able to consume and digest his food. There is also a mechanical bed that helps him sleep with a constant gyrating motion. Underneath all of the gore, there is also a love story between Caprice and Saul, with some really intimate moments that are touching, especially with Saul’s condition and this hopeless neverending mutation and the care that Caprice shows him. Kristen Stewart stars as Timlin who works for the National Organ Registry and becomes obsessed with Saul and his performance art to the point of infatuation.
Scott Speedman stars as Lang Dotrice a leader in the rebellion who is being hunted by authorities for his desire to change his group’s anatomy to survive. His character questions society’s rights over what one does with their own body and while some like Saul are allowed to adapt, it speaks volumes that Lang and his people are being prosecuted as rebels. In a twist, we learn that Lang is the father of the young boy who was killed at the beginning of the film by his mother Brecken played by Sozos Sotiris, and he was born with the ability to consume and digest plastics. He was pivotal in showing the government proof of how evolution was inevitable but was killed by his mother as she was afraid and had no tolerance for her son being what she deemed as a mutant experiment, basically stating what she gave birth to was not human.
Crimes of the Future makes one contemplate the idea of governance over our own bodies mixed with a lot of shocking immersive visuals, but definitely has one concerned about where technology, environment, and human rights will meet not only now, but in the future.
View the official trailer below.
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