CRIMES OF THE FUTURE is a much smarter film than I thought I was getting myself into. I was expecting some classic Cronenberg body horror but left with a compelling story that takes a deep dive into such topics as High Art, Evolution and Environmentalism. The film ends up posing a question of how to save our world and a possible solution to it.
The film starts with a young boy being murdered by his mom. The boy isn’t normal though, as we see him eat plastic. The strange occurrence of consumed plastic becomes a huge topic throughout the film as the narrative begins to unravel. The film follows Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen) who is a performance artist plagued with an unusual disease. Saul grows new organs by random, ones doctors don’t have names for yet. The sudden growth of these unidentified organs brings him great discomfort leading him to own a wide array of specialty technology that helps him do simple everyday tasks like eating and sleeping. The world seems to look at evolution as taboo and keeps the society in a box. This is proven by the company of the specialty technology almost suppressing the owners of their technology. Saul is with Caprice (Leá Seydoux) who is his lover and helps him at his various artistic demonstrations. The pair like to push the envelope and show the audience things they’ve never seen before. The way they do this is cut out the random unidentified organs in front of an audience. The pair stumble on an act that could change the world of art when the boy’s father brings the pair his son’s body for a possible live autopsy act. Timlin (Kristen Stewart) is also looming around this world as a government worker who has a strange fascination with the pair’s shows and the possibility of joining them. The pair soon realize that the dead boy and his father might hold the key to saving the world and bringing humans to the next level of the evolutionary ladder.
The film tackles three main topics that inner weave themselves together by the time the credits roll. Those topics are high art, evolution, and environmentalism. The first of these topics is what the film builds itself off of, High Art. Saul and Caprice are performance artists in a world of many performance artists who use their body to shine a light on their society. The one scene that stands out in the trailer is the ear man. The ear man has many ears stitched onto himself and dances around in front of an audience. This scene could come off as shock cinema but it poses a very interesting question. Saul is talking to a woman about the performance and makes a good point, he states that the art is shocking but it isn’t saying anything. This could be Cronenberg showing off what critics feel about his own films or it could be a statement that there is art in the world that is all style and no substance. We as artists and appreciators of art have this discussion all the time on whether a piece of art exists just to exist or if it has a deep complex meaning. I’m doing this exact thing with the film. Cronenberg could be making a statement about how some art is made just to impress people, but deep down the select art isn’t actually trying to deliver a solid message to its audience. The art isn’t trying to change the perspectives of those viewing it, the art is just there for people to stare at for the duration of the piece. That concept makes the performance scenes much richer with subtext than they might seem at face value.
The second topic that is being covered in this film is evolution. Saul’s body is evolving as the days go on. The condition he has sees him growing a multitude of unidentified organs. His body is trying to evolve with the changing times, but Saul decides to get rid of them though his performance art. When Saul discovers the boy from the beginning of the film, the revelation begins to change his perspective of this unexpected evolution. Saul has a problem throughout the movie with swallowing his food. Something in his throat is not correct and doesn’t allow him to swallow and digest his food. The discovery of a group of people who can swallow plastic (including the dead boy) seems like a light at the end of the tunnel for him. He starts to realize that maybe if he let his body grow these organs, his pain might cease to exist. This conflict comes to a head during the final scene. The finale of this film is quite a beautiful one as we see Saul try to swallow the specialty food that these plastic eaters consume. The group has developed a style of food that helps them but poisons humans. Saul decides to consume the chocolate and find that he was able to swallow and digest it easier than any food he has tried. The film ends with Saul finally being at piece without any of the pain he has been feeling throughout. The film poses the question of whether or not these evolutions were forced by the group of plastic eaters or if someone could naturally develop this change. Saul discovers that his pain was just his body trying to bring him up the evolutionary ladder. Throughout the film, Saul and the rest of the characters see the growths as something that is hurting him, but his finale shows him that the growths are actually helping him become a better version of himself.
The final concept covered by this film is environmentalism. The world in this film is clearly one that has shifted its focus onto technology and has not tried to fix the plastic problem currently ravaging the planet. The company who sells the special equipment are almost suppressing the information of this possible evolution as they are going around and killing these special beings. If everyone evolves, then their profit would be affected. Big business and the government uses their power to suppress the concept of these evolutions to protect their bottom line while also destroying the planet with their technology. That sounds pretty similar to our world and our climate crisis. The evolved individuals create these chocolate bars out of plastic, which would lead to the world reversing the climate crisis and fixing many other problems that plague their society. The higher powers suppress this information because they see change as a problem and they want to keep it the way that it is. The evolved spend the whole film trying to show the world their findings and help bring society back onto the right track, but the people in power that could help fix the problem are suppressing them because it will hurt their bottom line. Cronenberg uses the form of body horror to shine a light on the complex problem of our climate crisis and he does a fantastic job with it.
I went into CRIMES OF THE FUTURE expecting some great Cronenberg body horror, but left with so much more. The film is much deeper than it looks on the surface. The film poses fantastic questions about high art, evolution and environmentalism and does it with the outer shell of a fantastic body horror film from a legend in the genre. The film elevates these concepts through a fantastic script, phenomenal performances, an atmospheric score and some super rich world building. If you are looking for a genre film with much more going on under the surface, this one would be a fantastic choice.
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