‘Crimes Of The Future’ is a body horror film set in the future that shows humans adapting to a synthetic environment, transforming and mutating beyond pain and infectious diseases, with some developing new organs. Together with his partner Caprice, Saul Tenser, a performance artist, showcases his transformation in elaborate art shows in a growing underground movement.
The film opens on Brecken and Djuna, a boy and his mother, as she watches the child play. Brecken is later shown consuming plastic, much to his mothers disgust. Unable to accept her son, Djuna smothers him and leaves the body to be found by her ex-husband, Lang.
Saul Tenser and Caprice, renowned performance artists, take advantage of Tenser’s ability to develop and grow new organs, and make a performance out of surgically removing the organs before a live audience. Due to his condition, Tenser constantly experiences digestive and respiratory discomfort, relying on bio-mechanical devices to aid him in eating and sleeping.
Tenser and Caprice meet with Wippet and Timlin, government bureaucrats in charge of the National Organ Registry, an office designed to catalogue and store newly evolved organs. At one of their shows, Timlin becomes captivated by Tenser and his artistic expression.
Tenser meets with Detective Cope who seeks to use him to infiltrate a group of radical evolutionists. Without telling Caprice, Tenser meets with a number of contacts at other biological performance art shows that lead him to the evolutionist cell. Tenser learns through Timlin that the evolutionists goal is to modify their digestive systems to be able to consume and digest plastics and other synthetic chemicals. The group mainly subsist on purple synthetic ‘candy bars’ of toxic waste, poisonous to others. Tenser also finds out that Lang is the leader of the cell and his son Brecken was born with the ability to digest plastic and synthetics.
Lang approaches Tenser and proposes that he and Caprice put on a performance, revealing the evolutionist’s anti-government agenda by performing an autopsy on Brecken – revealing the child’s evolved digestive system. Tenser agrees and performs the autopsy, but it is revealed that Brecken’s natural digestive system had been surgically replaced. When meeting with Detective Cope, Tenser finds out that Timlin replaced the boys digestive system to keep the evolutionary development away from the public. Tenser parts ways with Cope telling him he will no longer work with them, approving the groups views.
In closing, the film shows Tenser struggling to eat, with Caprice bringing Tenser one of the purple candy bars. As Tenser eats it, he stops struggling and sheds a tear.
‘Crimes of the Future’ is a body horror feature that carries with it a number of potent and subversive themes and ideas. Most notably, through grotesque surgical performances the film is able to explore the idea of human evolution aimed at coping with the environment that we’re creating for ourselves. By imagining the world as having devolved towards the synthetic, Cronenberg has created a space in which adapting to the environment seems the only logical next step, seemingly because we are either unable to salvage what’s left or unwilling to change to preserve the natural world.
The film raises many difficult questions, intricately tying together art, expression, discussion about climate change and the innate human nature to opposing change. As the film explores both sides of the evolutionary debate, we are presented with Lang as the anti-government cell leader and Cope as the detective. Neither one of them is painted in particularly striking tones, with Lang presenting as an ambitious and determined leader, whilst Cope is a steadfast government agent. Perhaps the film would have benefited if either of the characters were more ambitious towards their goal. As a result, the conclusion of the evolutionary discussion and the government trying to cover it up fades into the background as the film ends, not leaving a particularly strong impression on the viewer.
The stand out of the feature is Viggo Mortensen’s Tenser and Léa Seydoux’s Caprice. The two embody passionate artistic individuals who truly believe in their expression, and are speaking to a wider audience about taking control of one’s body. Parallels can be drawn through Tenser and Caprice’s work as representing the freedom of women over their bodies, yet the film doesn’t lean too much into it, rather focusing on the changing human physiology as something to be embraced, forewarning humans that adapting to one’s environment is the way forward.
Even though the film doesn’t step too far beyond the hideous or freakish, it delivers a potent message about the ability to change and adapt through multiple disorienting surgical scenes. By returning to his roots, David Cronenberg delivers a gloomy, yet tame horror film. The movie carries with it a constant strained and almost uncomfortable atmosphere, not unlike Tenser’s everyday life, by the end of which it almost feels tired and drawn out, seemingly melding together one too many ideas and not focusing too clearly on a singular point.
Not unlike its main character, ‘Crimes of the Future’ is a variable and unpredictable feature, surprising the viewer by presenting grotesque surgical scenes, yet managing to convey a sort of beauty hidden within the gore. By intertwining scenes of mutilation with ideas of a synthetic dystopia, Cronenberg has managed to create an odd and thought provoking feature, and even though it may get a bit muddled part way through, ‘Crimes of the Future’ is an engaging and provocative film.
Score: 3/4
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