David Cronenberg‘s Crimes of the Future opened three days ago (6.3). I’m presuming that the reviews scared a lot of would-be viewers off — not the negative judgments, of which there are very few, but the descriptions of the surgical slicings and glurpy body parts, not to mention “ear man.” But some HE followers are bolder and more inquisitive, or so I tell myself. Please share if you went there.
Just to get things started, here are some excerpts from my 5.24 Cannes review:
1. As far as it goes, Crimes is a respectable, dialogue-driven, high-concept chamber piece. Baroque, perverse, concentrated.
2. Where does it stand on my Cronenberg preference list? Somewhere in the middle, just above Dead Ringers and Naked Lunch. My all-time favorite Cronenberg film is still The Dead Zone, followed by A History of Violence, Crash, The Fly and Scanners.
3. Crimes of the Future is basically a play . There’s never any doubt that you’re watching a thoughtful, rigorously sculpted effort by a grade-A auteur. It’s not elevated horror but a kind of perversely erotic body-probe mood piece.
4. Remove the physical-effects stuff — bizarre surgical slicings, erotic body penetration, superfluous internal organ removal — and the seaside, small-hamlet, sound-stage setting (it was shot in Athens), and you’re left with a presentation that could have been staged at Manhattan’s Cherry Lane theatre or…whatever, on Philco Playhouse back in the early to mid ’50s.