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.
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 →