Breaking Down David Cronenberg: eXistenZ (1999)

Canadian Filmmaker David Cronenberg will turn 70 on March 15th, and at NerdSpan, we can’t possibly ignore such an important anniversary. Cronenberg is one of the most distinctive authors of our time, managing to imprint his unique signature in a wide spectrum of genres, ranging from B-Horror to period pieces.

We want to pay homage to his lengthy career by deconstructing some of his most relevant movies. We began a couple of weeks ago with his latest work, the technology centered drama Cosmopolis (2012) and this time we will breakdown his 1999 Sci-Fi mind twister, eXistenZ.

eXistenZ (2012) Directed and Written by David Cronenberg. Original Music by Howard Shore. Cinematography by Peter Suschitzky.

Fear in Cronenberg’s films is all about what comes from inside the body and mind, rather than about what comes from external threats. As he has claimed on occasion, in his movies, the worst monster of all lies inside each and every one of us.

By 1999, the threat of the Cold War was long gone, and the world was busy resolving how to gain maximum profit from that intangible cash cow called “Internet”. The Dot-com bubble was growing at light speed and was soon to burst in spectacular fashion. As our everyday waking life began to be spent more and more in front of our computers, fear was more likely to come from our email accounts than from distant Russia.

The blockbuster hit The Matrix (1999) was a surprisingly original and relevant tale for its time. Software, with its omnipresence and subtlety could be far more threatening than a robot with a gun. Besides The Matrix, global audiences saw two more films that year that depicted different views on how society’s perception of reality could change in the face of technology: The Thirteenth Floor and, the focus of this article, eXistenZ.

“I have this phobia about having my body penetrated surgically. You know what I mean?”

eXistenZ opens with a couple of surprisingly unspectacular shots of a scarce audience in a run down auditory. A software company is holding a seminar to showcase their latest video game called “eXistenZ”. The set is so simple and purposely trashy, the whole attention goes on to the seminar leader, played by Christopher Eccleston (GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra, 28 Days Later…), as he delivers his enthusiastic PR speech and asks for volunteers to test drive this allegedly new and revolutionary product.

The weird parade begins when we see the game console for the first time: a pink mass of moving, crying flesh with nipples and reddish swells as buttons… Yes, you read that right. We slowly acknowledge that we aren’t in Kansas anymore.

We are in a near future, (although it’s never explicitly stated when or where) and video games give society the ultimate escapism experience. People have bio-ports installed in their lower spine, where they “plug” their, ahem, “console” in order to play. Each game is run directly into your nervous system, which makes the gaming experience indistinguishable from real life. As soon as you plug in, you are transported into alternate realities with missions to accomplish. It’s like dreaming in a completely controlled environment where the senses are as acute as in real life.

Allegra Geller (Jennifer Jason-Leigh) having an intimate moment with her “Game Pod”

Allegra Geller played here charismatically by Jennifer Jason Leigh (The Machinist, Road to Perdition ) is the world’s most prominent game designer and the author of this new product. She is invited on stage to guide the volunteers into her new creation, but then there’s this freaky guy that ruins all the fun making an assassination attempt on Allegra with a “Bio Gun”. Hell breaks loose in the auditorium and Ted Pikul, the marketing trainee, played diligently by Jude Law (Closer, Sherlock Holmes) is the only one left to take Allegra to safe ground.

Ted: We’re both stumbling around together in this unformed world, whose rules and objectives are largely unknown, seemingly indecipherable or even possibly nonexistent, always on the verge of being killed by forces that we don’t understand.

Allegra: That sounds like my game, all right.

Ted: That sounds like a game that’s not gonna be easy to market.

Allegra: But it’s a game everybody’s already playing.

Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jude Law click together immediately and they both give convincing performances as their dominance shifts throughout the movie. The movie develops into a who-did-it crime adventure, where the odd couple has to hop from the virtual realm into the real world, back and forth, to uncover clues and solve a puzzle that becomes more intricate as they go further with their investigation. Who wants to kill Allegra? Why? What are those bloody consoles made of?

In such a setting, where the real world and the virtual environment are indistinguishable, certainty is not the most popular trait of the day. Nothing is what it seems and the weird turns up even weirder at each twist and turn.

There’s a lot of penetration, moaning and caressing, but surprisingly, no sex. The relationship of the characters with their game pods is a sensuous one. The preparation for each gaming session resembles foreplay more than anything else. You have to lift up your shirt, grab an umbilical cord with a pointy tip and insert it in your back. (Ouch!) The bio-port has to be lubricated and constantly checked for infections… WTF?

Cronenberg’s world is an incredibly weird one, not recommended for those with a need for certainty. If you are a spectator that looks for relief and lots of answers, you are not going to find that in here. Motivations are elusive, and there is little character development at the emotional level. You can’t blame yourself for not finding anything that you can hold on to in order to relate and care for the main leads. This is a cold film, focused on exciting your guts and your brain, but failing to poke your emotions.

The ending is so unexpected, it could be disappointing for many. The buildup is so intricate, and the conclusion so thin and vaporous, the contrast can kill the whole catharsis and disconnect you entirely from the experience. Everything the characters manage to find out throughout their quest will mean absolutely nothing because everything will turn itself on its head at the end of the film.

Jude Law also gets to use a “Bio Gun” in one of the film’s most memorable moments. You won’t look again at a Chinese Restaurant in the same way…

You can see the mastery in Cronenberg’s direction particularly in the way the movie separates the real world from the virtual environment. Unlike The Matrix, eXistenZ doesn’t use any CG, fades, dropping code or any cheap, flashy tricks to make the audience understand (or doubt) about in which realm the characters are hanging out. You just have to watch the film and pay close attention to the inventiveness displayed here. It kind of pays the ticket, so to speak.

Your skin will constantly crawl at each new scene full of the grotesque and the visceral. Slime, wounds, blood, you name it. Almost everything that can revolt a normal stomach is featured here, but in such a stylistic way, it’s oddly appealing. Each outrageous thing portrayed here is depicted with wild imagination and originality, and the concepts exposed go beyond the mere shock value. The relationship between technology and the human body is explored thoroughly, making us ask ourselves how far will we go in order to use the gadgets around us. Will technology be so overwhelming, it will be an indistinguishable part of our very nature?

Willem Dafoe’s (Platoon, Antichrist) brief participation is memorable, portraying the most creepy gas station clerk you’ve ever seen. Ian Holm (Alien, Brazil), Sarah Polley (Dawn of the Dead, Mr. Nobody) and Don McKellar (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Blindness) also give to their supporting roles a weight and dimension larger than what their little screen time would normally allow.

eXistenZ won a couple of awards and nominations at festivals worldwide, including a Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Fest. It was adapted by Cronenberg himself and Sean Scoffield (X-Men, Civil War) to comic format in a limited edition which I’m dying to check out.

Not quite as mature as Cosmopolis or Dead Ringers, and not as horrific and action packed as Scanners or The Fly, this film is definitively not Cronenberg’s finest hour. But all the traits that make him so relevant are present. This film will give you lots of memorable moments, sensations and tons of ideas to chew on if you are either a hardcore Cronenberg fan or if you just like your order of movies with plenty of viscera. Greatly recommended for a late night screening with a mixed audience of squeamish and hard stomach friends. They will all writhe alike.