InScience advises: Crimes of the Future
With his new film Crimes of the Future director David Cronenberg offers another unique look at our possible future, in which he dares to look beyond the biological limits of the human body. Watch the film now in LUX.
The film opens with a child eating plastic because his digestive system has mutated. This immediately sets the tone: with this film Cronenberg returns to body horror and science fiction, two genres to which his name has been inextricably linked since the 1980s thanks to film classics such as Scanners (1981), Videodrome (1983) and The Fly (1986). In the 1990s his fascination with mutations of the human body was an important source of creativity as well, as can be seen in Crash (1996) and eXistenz (1999).
In Crimes of the future, physical mutations are again used as a metaphor for social and societal developments. Cronenberg shows us a dystopian near future where the world’s population has shrunk dramatically. The focus is on the couple Saul and Caprice, who act together as performance artists. Saul’s body is able to create new organs, which are surgically removed during live performances.
With this film, Cronenberg poses exciting questions in the field of transhumanism, a school of thought that tries to break through the natural limits of the human body. That makes the film a challenging exercise and a wild ride – especially visually. The film premiered this year in Cannes, where it was rewarded with a standing ovation from the audience.