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eXistenZ
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The line to the exit was a steady stream. Before long, nowhere near the film's end, it felt as if my older brother and I were the only patrons in an emptied auditorium. It remains my most powerful David Cronenberg memory: watching his Jekyll-and-Hyde gynecologists tale, Dead Ringers, in a now-defunct Price Hill theater, while the audience walked out.
A long-lasting movie lesson was learnt then: Good movies aren't often for everyone.
That's something to remember before watching Cronenberg's unnerving future-thriller eXistenZ. You can't help but question Cronenberg's sick and twisted motives before being pulled into eXistenZ's inspired conspiracy tale.
Arriving 12 months after his controversial adaptation of J.G. Ballard's Crash -- about people with an erotic addiction to car crashes -- eXistenZ unfolds like a cinematic nostalgia trip to his earlier career. There is the trademark splatter. The entire film drips with an organic gooeyness. It feels playfully low budget. But eXistenZ meets the shock value expectations that frequently accompany a Cronenberg film. The allure of its cyberpunk story is undeniable.
Top computer game designer Allegra Geller (Jennifer Jason Leigh) finds her life threatened by zealous anti-virtual reality terrorists, assassins armed with flesh-and-bone guns that shoot human teeth. Luckily, a nerdy marketing trainee, Ted Pikul (Jude Law), saves Geller during a focus group for her new game system "eXistenZ." With a $1.5 million-dollar bounty placed on her head, their only hope for survival is to hide in the alternate universe of her virtual reality game.
Cronenberg's strange new world (eXistenZ is his first original screenplay since 1983's videodrome) comes complete with its own funky vocabulary. Here, in this not-so-distant future, virtual-reality addicts connect their fleshy "gamepods" into a "bioport" drilled into the base of their spines, hoping a "neurosurge" doesn't overload the system. Squishy cell phones throb with a pinkish glow. Mutated lizards, complete with two heads, are commonplace. Skiing has become obsolete, replaced by virtual reality. Ironically, within eXistenZ's bizarro landscape is an old-fashioned genre plot: would-be lovers on the lam. Cronenberg mines his tension the old-fashioned way, with danger behind every door. The film's message is clear: Trust no one.
The fuel for eXistenZ's best bursts of fantasy is its game-inside-of-a-game dramatic puzzle. Shifting its heroes into a different reality creates new characters (although the faces are the same) and a slightly warped plot. In this game world, action suddenly freezes until the proper line of dialogue is uttered to advance the game sequence. eXistenZ twists itself into more knots with little hint of a neat finality. Double agents and deadly spores are tossed into the mix. Explosive gunfire creates a battlefield atmosphere. Only when Ted screams "eXistenZ is paused!" does the story catch its fantasy breath. Then, eXistenZ flips back to its core reality, revealing its arcade heroes splayed across a bed, their gamepod umbilical cords draped across them.
"Reality can't compare with the make-believe world of eXistenZ," Allegra tells Ted. "It's boring. There's nothing happening here."
Most films of the horror ilk chug along with simple narratives: Chase the monster. Avoid the bogeyman. Shoot the villain. But eXistenZ is distinctly -- perhaps unintentionally -- vague. It is a moviemade house of cards frequently on the verge of toppling. When Allegra explains, "You have to play the game to find out why you're playing the game," she could very well be deciphering the film's disjointed narrative. Luckily, for the sake of narrative coherence, eXistenZ can claim two solid lead performances.
Law appears to be a castoff from some 1950s TV sitcom. His hair is cropped short. He twitches with a nervous manner. It's an emotionally accurate portrayal -- Tim as a geeky adolescent straight out of an Archie comic. Law's squeamish anti-hero (he suffers from a phobia of having his body surgically robbed) partners perfectly with Leigh's gamegirl genius.
Leigh is feisty as Allegra, sticking out her tongue as proof that open cavities don't get infected. She's also frequently shy, a curvy, stylishly dressed introvert with long blonde braids who spends too much time alone designing games. In Leigh's hands, Allegra becomes eXistenZ's whispery-voiced tour guide.
"The world of games is in a kind of a trance," she says timidly. "People are expected to accept so little, but the possibilities are so great. eXistenZ is more than a game ... I'm warning you. It's going to be a wild ride."
Leigh's mannerisms are familiar: the faraway gaze, jerkish body movement and vocal stutter. Not that any of those traits are inappropriate here. Law, mostly unknown to American audiences, thrives with his element of surprise. But the key that enables eXistenZ's futuristic tale to retain its tension is that Law and Leigh tackle the film with an intense believability. Because this on-the-run couple buys into eXistenZ's weirdness, you go along for the ride.
Cronenberg's distinct horror pathology -- he remains primarily a horror director despite his sidetracks with 1991's Naked Lunch and 1993's M. Butterfly -- ultimately, is the guiding force behind eXistenZ. The film's sense of playfulness originates in the thrill of splatter. Ted digs away at a bullet wound with a pocket knife (removing a decayed human tooth instead of a bullet). A benevolent scientist (Ian Holm) dissects Allegra's damaged gamepod as if it were a small animal: It's made of amphibious eggs and synthetic DNA. A Chinese waiter's head is blown apart by a makeshift gun.
Working primarily in the horror genre has deterred much of Cronenberg's rightful critical acclaim. His horror films turn formula upside-down. Rewatch the sex-crazed zombies of Shivers (1975); the phallic spike that grows out of Marilyn Chambers' armpit in Rapid (1976); the videotape slot inside James Wood's stomach in videodrome (1983) and Jeff Goldblum's mutating flesh as the tragic Brundle in The Fly (1986).
In Cronenberg's hands, what was once conventional horror evolves into tragic drama through the strength of his repressed characters. And like Law and Leigh in eXistenZ, it's these characters, even more so than the sexual themes and splatter gore, that drives each film. In fact, eXistenZ is surprisingly sex-free, replacing sexual thrills with video play. The closest eXistenZ gets to eroticism is when a tongue probes the fleshy hole of a bioport.
Still, eXistenZ's message is noble: a clever warning shot against creeping computer dependency and allegiance to all things computer-generated, digitally enhanced and virtually unreal. Cronenberg takes a swipe at contemporary Hollywood popcorn blockbusters, films that are transparent except for their array of special effects. Appropriately, eXistenZ unfolds its horror in relatively glitzless fashion. Compared to a futuristic nightmare like The Matrix, Cronenberg's eXistenZ is blatantly low-budget. It's part of the film's compelling charm.
If there is any obstacle to completely buying into eXistenZ, it's that Cronenberg continues to use such a pulpy, genre-driven messenger to deliver his high-minded tale. eXistenZ's philosophical theories don't always meld with practical storytelling.
eXistenZ aims, frequently hitting its target, with a more cerebral type of horror than recent teen trash like The Rage: Carrie 2 and I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. In fact, now, days after watching eXistenZ, the film seems richer, more complex and thought-provoking. It's as if eXistenZ keeps getting better with time. It's a testament to Cronenberg's storytelling talents: forcing you to think about a movie long after you've seen it, making you want to go back and watch it again. (Rated R.)
CityBeat grade: B
