Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future (the New One)

David Cronenberg is catching the Greek Weird Wave, filming his latest in the ancient but economically depressed nation. Aesthetically, they are perfect for each other. Body horror meets subversive, extreme anti-social behavior. Yet, according to Cronenberg’s vision of the future, both the body and society are evolving, but to what is yet to be determined in Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future, not the one from 1970, the entirely new and unrelated one that opens this Friday in New York.

It is not exactly clear how far into the future this film takes us, or where, but the environment is vaguely Mediterranean, for obvious reasons. Cronenberg doesn’t exactly pander to viewers during the prologue, in which a mother smothers to death her son, for eating the plastic waste basket.

Those are definitely Weird Wave vibes. Saul Tenser delivers the body horror, but he calls it art. For years, his body has spontaneously generated new mutant organs, which his partner Caprice surgically removes during their performance art programs. Each organ is considered a work of art that the newly formed National Organ Registry duly records. Not surprisingly, the Registry’s two employees, Whippet and Timlin, are among Tenser’s biggest fans.

Lang Dotrice also closely follows Tenser’s work. In fact, he offers Tenser a concept for his next show: autopsying Dotrice’s son, Brecken, who was killed at the start of the film. Dotrice leads a mysterious cult that has genetically modified themselves, so they can only consume plastic waste. Brecken was the first of their progeny to naturally develop their ability to digest plastic, but he apparently creeped out his unevolved-human mother.

Cronenberg definitely brings the gross and the weird, but the story and characters are a bit sketchy. This is an idea film and a mood piece rather than an exercise in story-telling to hold viewers rapt. However, the mood is pretty darned moody. Even though this is the future, everything looks dark, decaying, and fetid, like it could be part of a shared world with Naked Lunch, while the strange surgical and therapeutic devices look like they were inspired by the designs of H.R. Giger.

Viggo Mortensen and Lea Seydoux are perfectly cast and do indeed create an intriguing relationship dynamic as Tenser and Caprice. Cronenberg raises some challenging questions about the roles they both play in creating art, particularly with regards to the nature of authorship and intentionality.

Unfortunately, characters like the two mechanics from a shadowy Vogt-like multinational company, who are constantly servicing Tenser’s feeding chair and pain-relieving beds could have stumbled out of dozens of uninspired dystopian films. (Frankly, the sort of bring to mind the Super Mario Brothers movie, which is not a good thing.) Beyond Tenser and Caprice, the most interesting character might be Det. Cope of the new vice squad, who is trying to anticipate future crimes against the body. Welket Bungue portrays his hardboiledness with subtlety not found anywhere else in the film.

Slasher: Flesh & Blood, on Shudder

It is sort of like And Then There Were None, but everyone is dysfunctional family. Of course, the servants are keenly aware they aren’t, even though they secretly might be. Family game night is a miserable, dog-eat-dog tradition during Galloway family reunions, but this one will be lethal. At least the survivor stands to inherit a huge chunk of change in writer-creator Aaron Martin’s Slasher: Flesh & Blood, directed by Adam MacDonald, which premieres Thursday on Shudder.

Spencer Galloway always took sadistic delight pitting his family against each other. He told them it helped them develop the killer instinct necessary to succeed him as head of the family’s financial empire. However, this time the stakes are for all the marbles, but he won’t be around to enjoy the drama. Given a terminal diagnosis, Galloway planned to have his assisted suicide specialist administer his final exit and then preside over his particularly brutal games. Any family member who declines to play, regardless of the circumstances, inherits nothing.

That was the plan, but a psycho-slasher dressed in a mask and 19^th Century coat and tails complicates everything. Suddenly, each eliminated player also gets eliminated from life. There will also be a few surprise players: a literal prodigal will return and the housekeeper’s daughter gets her chance for recognition (and revenge).

The remote island setting and the Agatha Christie-like one-by-one plot structure still work pretty well in Flesh & Blood, but it lacks the suspenseful crackle & pop of the thematically similar (but under-appreciated) Harper’s Island. Also, F&B has a few kill scenes that are so disturbingly graphic, they would not be out of place in the Hostel franchise.

On the other hand, F&B features genre legend David Cronenberg portraying the nasty patriarch, Spencer Galloway, who will often be seen in uncomfortably revealing flashbacks. There is a drily manipulative dimension to his gamesmanship that is definitely chilling. Sydney Meyer and Paula Brancati are both appealingly energetic as potential “final women” survivors, Liv, the servant’s daughter and Christy Martin, the disgusted sister-in-law. Unfortunately, only Sabrina Grdevich really brings the flamboyant villainy as the elitist grown daughter, Florence.

Disappearance at Clifton Hill (Co-Starring Cronenberg)

The Clifton Hill promenade is sort of like Branson, but with waterfalls and conspiracy theories. Tourists regularly flock to the family friendly attractions on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, but the atmosphere there is really weird during low season. Of course, that is the perfect backdrop for the crime and corruption that unfolds in Albert Shin’s Disappearance at Clifton Hill, which opens this Friday in New York.

When Abby was a young girl, she witnessed a kidnapping while on a family camping trip. During the intervening years, she developed a reputation for telling stories, so her long-suffering sister Laure just assumes there is nothing to it. Nevertheless, when Abby returns to Niagara after her latest crash-and-burn, she resolves to finally solve the mystery. Her dubious investigation soon encompasses the wealthy but suspicious Lake family, who own a good deal of the tacky businesses on Clifton Hill, and the Moulins, a married duo of magicians clearly styled after Siegfried & Roy.

Abby is definitely an unreliable protagonist, but there is still something rotten in Niagara. After all, it’s Clifton Hill, Jake. Frankly, the secrets and conspiracies will not be particularly shocking to genre fans, even though Shin does his best to over-complicate them. However, he does a crackerjack job of establishing the tense mood and getting mileage out of the local idiosyncrasies.

In fact, one of the best things going for Disappearance is the character of Walter Bell, a scuba-diving local historian, who records his “Over the Falls” conspiracy theory podcasts from the town’s UFO diner. He is a memorable eccentric, especially since he is played (with understated elan) by legendary cult film director, David Cronenberg.

Jung vs. Freud: A Dangerous Method

Jungians consider Freud to be unnaturally sex-obsessed. Conversely, Freudians argue Jung debased the science with his superstitious mumbo-jumbo. Probably they are both more right than wrong. The birth of this great and enduring rivalry is dramatized in David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method (trailer here), which opens this Wednesday in New York.

Carl Jung married well and lives an upright life. A leading practitioner in a controversial new field of study, he is eager to apply the methods of psychoanalysis advocated by Sigmund Freud. Sabina Spielrein represents the perfect opportunity. Though possessing a rather sharp intellect, she is so profoundly disturbed she cannot function in society. Yet, when Jung gets her talking, the roots of her mental torment become clear. While the word “cured” might be too strong a term, she is able study medicine, with the intent of becoming of psychiatrist herself. Everything might have ended happily at this point, were it not for the libido’s self-destructive drive.

After giving into temptation once or a couple dozen times, the guilt wracked Jung breaks things off with his sort-of former patient rather precipitously. This drives the newly agitated Spielrein to seek the treatment of Jung’s new mentor, Dr. Sigmund Freud. As a result, Freud becomes somewhat disappointed in his younger colleague, while Spielrein increasingly aligns herself with the Freudian in her academic writings. Not surprisingly, these developments exacerbate the philosophical division between Freud and Jung.

Though clearly not nearly as renowned as her male colleagues, Spielrein arguably led the more cinematic life. A Russian Jew who tragically returned to her homeland during the early Soviet era (where much of her family perished during Stalin’s reign of terror), Spielrein was eventually killed by the National Socialists during WWII. Not just a beautiful woman, her scholarship is thought to have possibly influenced both Jung and Freud. (Jung also spanks her quite a bit in Method, if that happens to be your thing.)

Kiera Knightley really goes for broke as Spielrein, laying on the accent a tad thick, but bringing a remarkable physicality to the role. She makes neurotic twitchiness rather hot, even worthy of Oscar consideration. Despite having the screen time of a supporting player instead of a lead, Viggo Mortensen is convincingly smart and compulsively watchable as Freud, avoiding all the shticky goatee-stroking clichés associated with the iconic figure. Whereas the always tightly-wound Michael Fassbender is appropriately intense depicting Jung’s deeply rooted tension-and-release behavioral patterns.

Adapted by Christopher Hampton from his stage play, which in turn was adapted from John Kerr’s book, Method’s greatest problem is its flattening narrative arc. Had it followed Spielrein through her demise in WWII it would have ended on a more significant, if tragic note. As it stands though, the film just sort of runs out of story.

Throughout Method, Cronenberg adroitly handles both the rigorous intellectual debates and the provocative sexuality, largely rendering the latter with wise restraint. Probably more highbrow than old school Cronenberg fans might expect, he and Hampton clearly seem to want to present this critical period in the development of psychological study for its own sake rather than as a vehicle for lurid melodrama. It just lacks that epiphany moment. Frequently fascinating nonetheless, the overall quite engaging Method is definitely recommended when it opens this Wednesday (11/23) in New York at the Lincoln Plaza and Landmark Sunshine cinemas.

NYFF ’11: A Dangerous Method

Jungians consider Freud to be unnaturally sex-obsessed. Conversely, Freudians argue Jung debased the science with his superstitious mumbo-jumbo. Probably they are both more right than wrong. The birth of this great and enduring rivalry is dramatized in David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method (trailer here), which screens tonight as a gala selection of the 49th New York Film Festival.

Carl Jung married well and lives an upright life. A leading practitioner in a controversial new field of study, he is eager to apply the methods of psychoanalysis advocated by Sigmund Freud. Sabina Spielrein represents the perfect opportunity. Though possessing a rather sharp intellect, she is so profoundly disturbed she cannot function in society. Yet, when Jung gets her talking, the roots of her mental torment become clear. While the word “cured” might be too strong a term, she is able study medicine, with the intent of becoming of psychiatrist herself. Everything might have ended happily at this point, were it not for the libido’s self-destructive drive.

After giving into temptation once or a couple dozen times, the guilt wracked Jung breaks things off with his sort-of former patient rather precipitously. This drives the newly agitated Spielrein to seek the treatment of Jung’s new mentor, Dr. Sigmund Freud. As a result, Freud becomes somewhat disappointed in his younger colleague, while Spielrein increasingly aligns herself with the Freudian in her academic writings. Not surprisingly, this exacerbates the philosophical division between Freud and Jung.

Though clearly not nearly as renowned as her male colleagues, Spielrein arguably led the more cinematic life. A Russian Jew who tragically returned to her Soviet era homeland, much of Spielrein’s family perished during Stalin’s reign of terror, while she was eventually killed by the National Socialists. Not just a beautiful woman, her scholarship is thought to have possibly influenced both Jung and Freud. (Jung also spanks her quite a bit in Method, if that happens to be your thing.)

Kiera Knightley really goes for broke as Spielrein, laying on the accent a tad thick, but bringing a remarkable physicality to the role. She makes neurotic twitchiness rather hot, essentially usurping the film. Still, despite having the screen time of a supporting player instead of a lead, Viggo Mortensen is convincingly smart and compulsively watchable as Freud, avoiding all the shticky goatee-stroking clichés associated with the iconic figure, whereas the always forceful Michael Fassbender is appropriately tightly wound depicting Jung’s deeply rooted tension-and-release behavioral patterns.

Adapted by Christopher Hampton from his stage play, which in turn was adapted from John Kerr’s book, Method’s greatest problem is its flattening narrative arc. Had it followed Spielrein through her demise in WWII it would have ended on a more significant, if tragic note. As it stands though, Method just appears to run out of story.

Throughout Method, Cronenberg adroitly handles both the rigorous intellectual debates and the provocative sexuality, largely rendering the latter with wise restraint. Probably more highbrow than old school Cronenberg fans might expect, he and Hampton clearly seem to want to present this critical period in the development of psychological study for its own sake rather than as a vehicle for lurid melodrama. It just lacks that epiphany moment. Frequently fascinating nonetheless, the overall engaging Method screens twice tonight (10/5) at Alice Tully Hall as part of the 2011 New York Film Festival.