Crimes of the Future

Mit Klassikern wie VIDEODROME und THE FLY wurde Cronenberg in den 1980ern zum Virtuosen des organisch-fleischigen Body-Horrors. Mit CRIMES OF THE FUTURE kehrt der kanadische Regisseur nun vier Dekaden später in sein ureigenes Genre zurück und entwirft eine prominent besetzte philosophische Dystopie in einem futuristischen Industrie-Ödland. Mit vielen Deutungsfreiräumen breitet der atmosphärisch-bizarre Trip dabei seine Gedanken über Evolution und Wachstum neuer Organe, über Kunst, Chirurgie und die Anpassung des menschlichen Körpers an den technischen Fortschritt aus, und einmal mehr erweist der Filmemacher sich auf der Höhe der Zeit. (Sascha Rettig)

In a future not so very far away that has been devastated by climate disaster and accelerated evolution, art has stretched to all the corners of humankind’s self-destructive experience, like a viscous liquid filtering through every crack of a rusted old ship sunk decades ago in the Aral sea. The main characters of this film are performance artists Saul Tenser and Caprice. Their work concentrates on Tenser’s ability (or perhaps disability is more apt) to grow new, unknown organs in his body due to an accelerated evolution syndrome. Faced with the effects of a human-made process which they politically oppose, Tenser and Caprice put on evenings where she removes his new organs in protest. Their practice has a meaning (in the “we are killing our children” way), but what looks like a satire soon gets complicated. A simple metaphor evolves into a living being with organs of its own, as what starts as a basic dystopia explodes into the unknown. Darker personalities start to get involved in these performances, together with their desires. The machines that closely observe the body (ultrasounds, autopsy tables) constantly change hands between the artists, the technicians, the bureaucrats and the rebels. Is the new flesh still a matter of perspective? Crimes of the present, crimes of the future. (Lucía Salas)

David Cronenberg: CRIMES OF THE FUTURE (1970), RABID (1977), SCANNERS (1981), VIDEODROME (1983), THE DEAD ZONE (1983), THE FLY (1986), DEAD RINGERS (1988), NAKED LUNCH (1991), M. BUTTERFLY (1993), CRASH (1996), eXistenZ (1999), A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE (2005), COSMOPOLIS (2012), MAPS TO THE STARS (2014)