Virtual Reality really does feel fresh in our minds right now. Thanks to its mainstream advent, throwing away the novelty first applied to the bulky, nauseating feeling of being in a completely different environment. As the trends of gaming now swing toward trying to impress newcomers with flash technology that can turn their living room into a battlefield or a meadow, it’s rather comforting to see that director David Cronenberg had his say on the subject twenty years ago. How dangerous Virtual Reality could become if thrown into the wrong hands is investigated thoroughly well in Cronenberg’s final 20th century outing, and is perhaps one of his strongest films.
After shuffling through his filmography with all the urgency of an elderly person crossing a busy road, I finally wrap up my time with Cronenberg. Going into this and expecting a rather mediocre film left me wholly surprised, especially since eXistenZ is perhaps one of Cronenberg’s best films. His culmination of everything he has learned through shlock horror and visual effects, combined with his need and dedication to throwing in an unwinding narrative. Very much feeling like lightning in a bottle at this point in his career, Cronenberg brings us a sharp, disgusting, mind-bending view of living a life solely in your mind without ever realising. It’s like Inception, but with actual depth and interesting characters.
Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jude Law star, making for a formidable leading duo that infiltrate Allegra Geller’s game to uncover a conspiracy theory against her and her game. The usual stalwarts of the Cronenberg cast appear, with Ian Holm joining us briefly, alongside some up and coming appearances from Willem Dafoe and Christopher Eccleston. Leigh’s performance as Geller is phenomenal, finding the right balance between showcasing her awe at how well her game works and her fear that they may not be able to find their way out. There are moments critical of typical gaming narratives, the faux love angles and the dialogue choices found even within modern gaming all fall prey to the criticism Cronenberg has to offer here.
That’s perhaps the biggest praise I can give eXistenZ, it does feel like a video game at times. It follows an intentionally linear narrative, with something much larger bubbling underneath. Whilst never fully realised, Cronenberg hollows out a unique experience from something that, under the hands of another director, would have become a generic sci-fi involving dreams, puzzles and rather drab conventions of the genre. Not wanting to be bound to this genre, Cronenberg does everything within his power to revive the horrors and visual flair that his greatest hits had, and it makes this film all the better. Law and Leigh deal with gory infections, alien-like beings, guns made of bones and bullets fashioned out of teeth as they work their way through a game, looking for an assassin that’s hunting them down in the real world.
Layered storytelling is always a risky shot in the dark, but Cronenberg pulls it off in style with eXistenZ. Visually delightful, capturing the style of a video game with relative ease, his criticisms and praise for the medium are hidden within his leading character portrayals, two individuals who find themselves both fascinated and mortified by the goings on around them. Well cast, incredibly shot, and holding within it enough twists and turns to keep even the most passive of audiences on their toes, eXistenZ is a thoroughly fun time that blends the best of what Cronenberg has to offer.
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