On Monday (May 23), Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg's long-awaited new film Crimes of the Future premiered at Cannes Film Festival to a polarizing audience — one that saw dozens walk out midway through the premiere, and one that honoured the film with a seven-minute standing ovation [via Variety].
According to film distributor Neon, Crimes of the Future is rated R for "strong disturbing violent content and grisly images, graphic nudity and some language," which apparently include a vivid child autopsy scene, close-ups of bloody intestines and characters who orgasm when they lick each other's open wounds. Those who left the film were unable to stomach just exactly what they were seeing; those who stuck around, however, were a favourable jury.
"I'm very touched by your response," Cronenberg reportedly said after the ovation. "I hope you're not kidding. I hope you mean it."
Crimes of the Future finds the director back in sci-fi body horror-mode for the first time since his 1999 production eXistenZ — and while the lengthy applause seems to have surprised him, he definitely expected the walkouts.
This isn't the first time a controversial Cronenberg film has been met with a more-than dissatisfied audience: the 1996 premiere of Crash — starring James Spader as a film producer who zooms in on a group of people deriving sexual pleasure from car crashes — had viewers booing when they stormed out of the theatre.
In the new film, Viggo Mortenson — who has reunited with Cronenberg for the third time to create the forthcoming gore-show — plays a dedicated, rather disillusioned performance artist in a dystopian universe who has his organs operated on in a pseudo-sexual ritual. The film also stars Kristen Stewart, who plays an employee at the transplant centre, and Léa Seydoux.
The official Crimes of the Future synopsis reads: "As the human species adapts to a synthetic environment, the body undergoes new transformations and mutations. With his partner Caprice (Seydoux), Saul Tenser (Mortensen), celebrity performance artist, publicly showcases the metamorphosis of his organs in avant-garde performances. Timlin (Stewart), an investigator from the National Organ Registry, obsessively tracks their movements, which is when a mysterious group is revealed. Their mission: to use Saul's notoriety to shed light on the next phase of human evolution."
Crimes of the Future opens in theatres on June 3.
According to film distributor Neon, Crimes of the Future is rated R for "strong disturbing violent content and grisly images, graphic nudity and some language," which apparently include a vivid child autopsy scene, close-ups of bloody intestines and characters who orgasm when they lick each other's open wounds. Those who left the film were unable to stomach just exactly what they were seeing; those who stuck around, however, were a favourable jury.
"I'm very touched by your response," Cronenberg reportedly said after the ovation. "I hope you're not kidding. I hope you mean it."
Crimes of the Future finds the director back in sci-fi body horror-mode for the first time since his 1999 production eXistenZ — and while the lengthy applause seems to have surprised him, he definitely expected the walkouts.
This isn't the first time a controversial Cronenberg film has been met with a more-than dissatisfied audience: the 1996 premiere of Crash — starring James Spader as a film producer who zooms in on a group of people deriving sexual pleasure from car crashes — had viewers booing when they stormed out of the theatre.
In the new film, Viggo Mortenson — who has reunited with Cronenberg for the third time to create the forthcoming gore-show — plays a dedicated, rather disillusioned performance artist in a dystopian universe who has his organs operated on in a pseudo-sexual ritual. The film also stars Kristen Stewart, who plays an employee at the transplant centre, and Léa Seydoux.
The official Crimes of the Future synopsis reads: "As the human species adapts to a synthetic environment, the body undergoes new transformations and mutations. With his partner Caprice (Seydoux), Saul Tenser (Mortensen), celebrity performance artist, publicly showcases the metamorphosis of his organs in avant-garde performances. Timlin (Stewart), an investigator from the National Organ Registry, obsessively tracks their movements, which is when a mysterious group is revealed. Their mission: to use Saul's notoriety to shed light on the next phase of human evolution."
Crimes of the Future opens in theatres on June 3.
