Category Archives: Science Fiction

Sculpting the Self – Tenser and the Inner Beauties

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CRIMES OF THE FUTURE – a film by David Cronenberg – SPOILERS

UPDATE: 1 December 2022 – CRIMES OF THE FUTURE will be released in 4K Blu-ray on 31 January.

Kristen Stewart - Crimes of the Future

Kristen Stewart as Timlin of the National Organ Registry

Not nearly as gory as, for instance, Guillermo del Toro’s CABINET OF CURIOSITIES, this story might be an attempt by Cronenberg to envision the impact of his work in a stylized future, and seems closely related to his one-minute short film THE DEATH OF DAVID CRONENBERG (which he co-directed with his daughter Caitlin) in which Mr. Cronenberg gets to observe himself after death.

In a time in which physical pain is a thing of the past and humans are impervious to infection, Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen) and former trauma surgeon Caprice (Léa Seydoux) use Tenser’s mutating body as the basis of their performance art. Pain still happens for some people during sleep, and Tenser is one of those favoured with unconscious agony. He has purchased a self-adjusting Orchidbed made by a company called LifeFormWare. It monitors his neural activity, repositioning him accordingly, allowing him to rest.

Tensor has another machine that helps him eat. About twelve minutes into the film, while he is having a mechanically-assisted breakfast, in a scene that illustrates her lack of true involvement with Tensor’s artistic activities, Caprice quietly dines alone, sitting on the kitchen counter, ingesting (among other things) a strip of undercooked bacon. Continue reading →

Anti-Gravity, Edible Flowers, and Hybrid Orchids

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VESPER – a film by Kristina Buožytė and Bruno Samper – (limited spoilers)

We first see her searching for root vegetables in the mud, but that is not her primary occupation. A year after her mother disappeared, thirteen-year-old Vesper (Raffiella Chapman) keeps herself busy by caring for her father (Darius, played by Richard Brake), a wounded veteran on life support. In her spare time she genetically engineers new and sometimes sentient species. “This is the first one I created,” she tells Camellia (Rosy McEwen), after rescuing her from the tendrils of several rogue species whose origins Vesper had nothing to do with. “He’s sulking because I haven’t been here for a few days. He’s not the best looking, but he has character.” She introduces her new friend to more of her creations and explains: “I’m still learning. The first ones didn’t even survive, or they killed each other, but I’m getting closer to the right assembly with each generation.” Continue reading →

The Battle of Baffin Island

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SLASH/BACK – directed by Nyla Innuksuk – (limited spoilers)

Alexis Wolfe, Frankie Vincent-Wolfe, Tasiana Shirley, and Chelsea Prusky - Slash/Back

Uki, Maike, Jesse, and Leena

In the town of Pangnirtung on Baffin Island, on the east side of Cumberland Sound, four girls, Maike (Tasiana Shirley), Uki (Nalajoss Ellsworth), Jesse (Alexis Wolfe), and Leena (Chelsea Prusky), decide to take a boat up the coast to some (presently deserted) hunting cabins. Once there, they exchange scary stories and Uki offers a tale she claims is true. “You know the Kattuk boy that went missing last spring?,” she asks. “Well Brenda was talking to Billy Mike, and Billy Mike was talking to a fisherman from Iqualuit, and he said that he saw the boy playing by the water. And then like a fog rolls in, and out comes a gray head with long black hair…snatches the boy and drags him into the water.” She then suggests the boy might have been taken by the Qualupalik. Of the four, Uki is the only one who enjoys living in Pangnirtung. The others wish they were elsewhere. They are bored with the town, and regard legends such as the Qualupalik as “silly Inuk shit”. Continue reading →