Upcoming Crimes: A Shocking Film Explained by David Cronenberg

David Cronenberg continues to move the lines. Les Crimes du futur – a project he has long led – depicts a world where surgery has become a new form of sexuality. Because of desensitization, people have no choice but to explore extreme pleasures.

The film, starring Viggo Mortensen, Leah Seidou and Kristen Stewart, is in the official competition for the 75th Cannes Film Festival. AlloCiné spoke to the director to unravel the secrets of this unique work.

AlloCiné: You wrote Crimes of the future Twenty years ago, before I put a script in a drawer. The film amazes with its urgency and modernity. Did you shoot the script before filming?

David Cronenberg: No, the script did not change me at all. I did not make the second version either. Changes have occurred during production, but this is normal. For example, I wrote a film about Toronto and we shot it in Athens. I have mastered the city, the Mediterranean, the different light, everything that does not exist in Toronto.

Athens is a very old city and in 2008 suffered a major financial collapse. There are many abandoned, rusty buildings. I used it all Crimes of the future. However, the dialogues remained the same. This is a direct translation of what I wrote twenty years ago. It shows how the film looks ahead of its time and works.

You make movies on the set, along with your actors. You trust your instincts. For example, you do not prepare stories.

To me the story is like a string. I do not want that. with Viggo MortensenWhen I’m on the set, I tell him:Vigo, let’s see how we play this scene“I want his opinion, his involvement, cooperation, if you do a scriptboard, you slow down the actor.

I ask him: “How do you like to play this scene? Where do you want to put your head?“When I go to the set, I still do not know what a movie should be. So yes, instinct is very important to me.

There are similarities between Saul, the character played by Viggo Mortensen, and himself. You also create art with your organs: you sell pictures of your kidney stones. What do you think most of this character looks like?

Definitely. I write a lot of my scripts, so I put my stuff in it. Viggo Mortensen I really think this is my most, he says, “autobiographical” film. Obviously, I am not having surgery on my head, but there is a connection. He is the archetype of the artist who gives everything to his audience from within. So as far as I’m concerned, then, yes, he ‘s like me.

In the film, people are numb with pain. In order to feel alive, artists need to scare themselves. Do you think it is possible to create art without suffering?

Yes. I do not think suffering is necessary. Art can also be synonymous with joy and positive experiences. .Surprising. But if you are alive, you will suffer. There is no doubt about that. Art is our way of relating to reality. This is the human condition, the reality of death and loss. Everyone experiences all of this to the end.

We are destroying the universe.

The extreme performances in the film are impressive. There are indeed artists who use their bodies and mutilate themselves on stage. Have you ever attended shows like this to write these scenes?

I conducted research and knew that artists deliberately hurt themselves. Hooks are hung for example. Ever since I wrote the script, there has been a lot more performance. It has become more popular. It was quite rare, I think, twenty years ago. This is much more common now, probably because more people are suffering. But I’ve never seen plays like you can see in a movie, so I really invented them.

In most of your works, your characters are in search of freedom. This is the case here again Crimes of the future.

It was originally called a script Painkillers – Painkillers in French. So that was an essential part of the story: people are numb, they can feel nothing, so the feeling of pain has become what they are thirsting for. They are in search of their own humanity.

Viggo Mortensen, Lea Seidu And Kristen Stewart Conversation David Cronenberg :

How did you create the cars visible in the movie?

I work with Carol Spier, my production designer. It was he who found the artists to paint this creation. For example, the mirror bed, the one on which Viggo Mortensen’s character rests. At first, in the script, it looked a lot like a spider web. On paper, it worked. When we started designing it, it was not right at all.

We tried something completely different, more organic. So I had a lot of drawings, a lot of sketches, a few possible versions, and even three-dimensional computer-generated image versions of what is possible today.

Do you know where these cars are stored today?

I do not have the weakest idea (He starts laughing, the editor notes.)

early Crimes of the future, Each viewer can make their own interpretation. In my opinion, this is a film aimed at the younger generations who need to be stronger in order to survive in a more difficult world.

I do not make movies to get messages, but I have three children and now four grandchildren, so I can not stop thinking about what is happening in the world. It is obvious that we are destroying. I also think of the incredible environmental damage caused by any war and then the threat of nuclear war. I lived in the fifties and this fear of nuclear destruction, I know what it is.

This is a science fiction film and yet many facts are close to reality. As our bodies develop, they become stronger.

Endurance of the body is incredibly difficult. At the beginning of my studies I wanted to become a scientist and I wanted to specialize in cell biology. What we thought about cells was completely naive compared to what we later discovered. The body still has a lot of surprises waiting for us.

Interview by Thomas Desrosch, Paris, 29 April 2022.

Crimes of the futureIn cinemas on May 25, 2022.