I've never been to the Cannes Film Festival.
We had a chance to go, back in the '90s, when the media landscape was way different than it is today, but we declined on the grounds that it was too expensive. We could cover more with a few extra days at the Toronto International Film Festival. Most of the films at Toronto would be coming to Arkansas theaters in a matter of weeks, and there were far more movies at Toronto. It seemed a more prudent use of the company's money.
I don't regret that, though I feel a little envious of the people who do go to Cannes every year. It's one of those experiences that everyone who cares more than a little about the movies is at least curious about. I have been to a lot of film festivals (right now, I'm pretty excited about going back to New York City to the Tribeca Film Festival in a couple of weeks) and they all have their own character. I would like to experience Cannes. I might still get the chance.
Canadian writer-director David Cronenberg's "Crimes of the Future," which premiered at Cannes last week, is opening in local theaters today. It is apparently quite a polarizing film; Variety reported dozens of audience members walked out, presumably because they were repulsed by some of the movie's goriest scenes.
It stars Viggo Mortensen (who starred in two of Cronenberg's best movies: 2005's "A History of Violence" and 2007's "Eastern Promises") as Saul Tenser, a performance artist in a near-future dystopia whose act consists of having his organs surgically removed onstage. Saul is able to grow new organs to replace those harvested because he has acquired "accelerated evolution syndrome," a condition where pain disappears and rapid regeneration is possible.
Saul is assisted in his act by Caprice (Lea Seydoux), his wife, who operates on him via a jelly-like control panel.
That's what I glean from the press notes and the Wikipedia entry on the film. The publicist for the film's distributor Neon tells me it wasn't screened for critics anywhere but Cannes. Only a few critics walked out, Variety reported, but the regular audience, mostly made up of film industry people, gave the movie a seven-minute standing ovation. I expect the reviews for "Crimes of the Future," when they emerge, to be mixed.
It's probably not a film that's well-served by synopsis. Kristen Stewart turns up as an investigator for the National Organ Registry who becomes quite interested in Saul -- in the film's trailer, she tells him "surgery is the new sex" -- and like all things Cronenberg there is apparently a philosophical sheen applied to all these scenes of body horror. Which is to say that whatever "Crimes of the Future" is, it's more than a reductive plot recitation can convey.
I once called Cronenberg our most interesting living director, but a few of his films have been out-and-out misfires; while I liked his version of "Crash" (1996) better than Paul Haggis' Oscar-winning one from several years later, I primarily remember it for its audacity.
I was not thrilled by 1999's "eXistenZ," Cronenberg's last foray into full-blown science fiction. But I've been a fan since 1983's "Videodrome" (I probably need to see his 1981 mainstream breakthrough effort "Scanners" again; at the time I took it for just another bloody horror film. Enough people whose opinions I trust assure me it's something more than that).
He's never put together a string of five great movies, but from 2002 to 2007, when he made "Spider" and the aforementioned films with Mortensen, you could argue he was the best director working.
I think I made that argument.
It's unfortunate that we didn't have a chance to review "Crimes of the Future" -- adding to the confusion, the film shares a title with Cronenberg's very first feature, from 1970, but it's not a re-make -- because it's certainly the most important movie opening in Arkansas theaters today. (And, though I still have a few traps to check, it might be the only movie opening in Arkansas theaters today.)
But that's the environment we're in now; theatrical releases are only part of the current film landscape. And the film's distributors have no doubt concluded that the best marketing strategy is to not screen the movie for critics who didn't make the trip to France.
While the success (commercial and critical) of "Top Gun: Maverick" seems to indicate that movie theater audiences are back in a big way, the box office's prospects of a mid-major David Cronenberg film have always been precarious; far more people are likely to see a film like "Crimes of the Future" in their living rooms (or on their devices) than in a theater.
Cronenberg fans, who do exist, will find their Cronenberg. But I'm not sure the headlines from Cannes will induce many new fans to see his latest strange film.
Government bureaucrat turned superfan Timlin (Kristen Stewart) checks out performance artist/organ regenerater Saul (Viggo Mortensen) in a scene from David Cronenberg’s “Crimes of the Future.”