With nausea, the opposite is true – Newspaper Kommersant No. 160 (7361) of 09/01/2022

David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future is out. Against the general dull background of the English-language distribution in Russia, the film by the absolute guru of modern science fiction and the father of body horror is a huge event. The more regrettable is the indistinctness and secondariness – in relation to the former masterpieces of Cronenberg – “Crime”, which saddened Mikhail Trofimenkov.

Cronenberg is a genius: this is, as they say, a scientifically established fact. A visionary who embodied in “Scanners” (1981), “Videodrome” (1982), “Fly” (1986) and “Car Crash” (1996) the innermost fears of modern humanity. A philosopher who was the first to visualize a highbrow discourse about what is commonly called “corporality”, about the interpenetration of the human body and the latest technologies, about the irresistible craving of the human race for self-destruction. Kant of sadomasochism, Hegel of pop culture, Feuerbach of self-mutilation.

But it is no coincidence that this master and sage left the territory of fantasy almost a quarter of a century ago, where he reigned, it would seem, omnipotently. It is no coincidence that he turned to the psychopathology of reality: mafia violence, the history of psychoanalysis, show business schizophrenia. Perhaps he just felt that reality is much darker than any of his fantasies, that evil lives between us, here and now, and not at all in the world of exploding scanner heads, human video players and organic pistols made from the skin and bones of lizards. Be that as it may, on the eve of his eightieth birthday, Cronenberg returned to where he started. Even the title – but not the plot – “Crimes of the Future” duplicates the title of one of his first, low-budget opuses in 1970.

What can I say? We take off our hats. We applaud. And quietly brush away a tear of disappointment. Roughly speaking, if Cronenberg’s past masterpieces made me sick, then somehow in a good, philosophical way, and now I feel sick in a bad way, sadly. This is probably the first film of his that is simply boring to watch.

Begin, however, “Crime” stunning, in the best traditions of the old director. The mother begs the angel-son, who is playing on the seashore, not to drag any rubbish into his mouth. The son does not obey and quietly eats, locked in the toilet, a plastic trash can. Mom has no choice but to strangle the little monster with a pillow.

The promising “plastic-eater” line is lost, only to surface towards the end of the film. Meanwhile, the idea of ​​transforming people into destroyers of waste that has polluted the universe is both witty and relevant: who would tell Greta Thunberg. But, alas, this only purely Cronenberg find remains in the margins of the film. Its main space is occupied by both visual and verbal mumbling, which hardly lends itself even to analysis, but to retelling.

In the cyberpunk future – a filthy, rusty life plus fantastic technologies – people not only mutate, but somehow evolve incorrectly. Body painter Saul (Viggo Mortensen), who looks very much like Death from Bergman’s The Seventh Seal in a hooded cloak, for example, is growing some extra organs. His co-author Caprice (Lea Seydoux) publicly amputates and tattoos these organs, which costs the viewer a dozen scenes that would be disgusting if they were not so ridiculous. And some anonymous participant in the “inner beauty contest” is dancing, having grown a couple of dozen ears on his body and sewing up his mouth: hello to Pyotr Pavlensky.

Even in this world, chairs and beds made of bones and tentacles are in great demand. Unintelligible characters wander about, like two lesbians with electric drills used as weapons, or something dangerous doctor who does not even have time to utter a word before the drills burst into his ears. What kind of doctor, who he is – Cronenberg does not deign to answer us. And in this world there is a certain “New Vice Police”, represented by a sleazy Canadian-African. Saul works for this police “undercover”, but again, nothing intelligible from his dialogues with the special serviceman follows. Perhaps, in the clicking of pebbles, which the curator throws at the sides of the ships, which have rusted on the eternal joke, there is an encryption hidden: Cronenberg knows better.

Everything would be fine – the visuals are viscous, but creepy – if the characters of “Crime” did not speak continuously. They didn’t even talk, they just mumbled. About surgery as real sex: tell that, Mr. Cronenberg, to someone who has experienced real surgery. About the notorious “inner beauty”. That “the body needs organization”: a formula as meaningful as the Soviet maxim “the economy must be economical.” About the fact that “the body is a reality”: who would doubt it. The fact that human giblets can be compared with the creations of Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp and Francis Bacon.

In general, the emotional reaction can be summarized as follows: David, please shut up, at least for a while. You have done so much not only for world cinema, but also for the self-consciousness of mankind, that, of course, you have the right to say whatever you like. But still, shut up.