director/screenwriter
David Cronenberg
producers
David Cronenberg
Andras Hamori
Robert Lantos
cinematographer
Peter Suschitzky
music
Howard Shore
editor
Ronald Sanders
cast
Jennifer Jason Leigh (Allegra Geller)
Jude Law (Ted Pikul)
Ian Holm (Kiri Vinokur)
Willem Dafoe (Gas)
Don McKellar (Yevgeny Nourish)
Callum Keith Rennie (Hugo Carlaw)
Christopher Eccleston (Levi)
Sarah Polley (Merle)
Robert A. Silverman (D'Arcy Nader)
mpaa rating: R
running
time: 97m
u.s.
release: April 23,
1999
video
availability: VHS - DVD
other david
cronenberg films
reviewed on this website:
- crash
- a
history of violence
|
In
the agreeably low-tech world of eXistenZ, the elaborately
entertaining new film by David Cronenberg, technology has sort
of gone backwards, or sideways, and become technobiology. Those
who fetishize computers and hardware won't find much to plug
into in this movie, which imagines, among other things, guns
made out of flesh and bone and virtual-reality gamepods that
resemble nothing so much as pulsating sex toys. This is not the
Cronenberg of Crash,
a stark icicle of a film; eXistenZ finds him in a witty
and playful mood. The whole movie is a game, visceral as well
as philosophical; it's a great wild ride to stand alongside Cronenberg's
Videodrome and Naked Lunch.
To attempt a plot synopsis would be folly; I will limit myself
to the basic set-up. Jennifer Jason Leigh is Allegra Geller,
a renowned virtual-reality game designer preparing to unveil
her latest masterpiece, "eXistenZ." Unfortunately,
a Khomeini-like fatwa has been issued on her life, and she goes
on the run with public-relations rookie Ted Pikul (Jude Law),
who becomes her bodyguard by default. What follows is 90 minutes
of guess-what's-real hijinks. In Cronenberg's hands, however,
such games are never played on the audience for their own sake:
not for nothing do the game and the film have a metaphysical
ring. A clue is provided the first time we hear someone pronounce
the name, which sounds closer to "existential" than
to "existence." If, as existentialism has it, we are
responsible for our own acts in this reality as we know it, what
happens if that reality is false?
As the middle film in this year's unofficial trilogy of virtual-reality
fantasies, eXistenZ will no doubt be compared with the
big hit The
Matrix and the upcoming The 13th Floor, but Cronenberg
works his own side of the street. He gets better and better as
a filmmaker; every frame is meticulous in its control and purpose.
Regular composer Howard Shore and cinematographer Peter Suschitzky
build a firm aural and visual backdrop for Cronenberg's complex
ideas and structure. Ted Pikul, the latest in a long line of
passive Cronenbergian observers, is our onscreen counterpart;
we share his confusion and are grateful when Allegra briefs him
on the rules of "eXistenZ" (first rule: there are no
rules).
Even without the icky organic biomechanics, eXistenZ would
be completely in keeping with Cronenberg's method, which is to
suggest that the world as seen through the eyes of the protagonists
(and therefore through the audience's eyes) shouldn't be taken
at face value. Cronenberg uses the multilevel construction of
a game to show us what he has always shown us: that there is
more than one way to experience reality. As the plot of the game
keeps shifting, we are left without any bearings, without any
way to know whether to trust anyone, even ourselves. This, of
course, is life -- or existence.
Depressing? Not the way Cronenberg approaches it. He's a laughing
existentialist here, a philosopher who sees the comedy in disorientation.
In his version of Naked Lunch, everything we saw was merely
the lead character's self-protecting fantasy filter for what
was really going on, and here we go deep inside a game designer's
contrived, cliched view of what's happening around her. eXistenZ
comes complete with its own self-critiques, but it's not a shallowly
amusing exercise in deconstruction á la Scream;
it's closer to our own detached experiences of watching ourselves
watch ourselves until reality becomes a hall of mirrors in which
we can't escape the reflection of our own perceptions. eXistenZ
is a fast and engaging joyride; it takes you around in circles,
but you don't see the same things twice. |
