With bleeding bodies and pulsating organs, director David Cronenberg brought horrific images to Cannes – and the big stars.
US actress Kristen Stewart said of her role in Crimes of the Future at the film festival on Tuesday that she enjoyed the morbid images. “Every single gaping, bleeding, throbbing, weird frame, every bit of injury, every bruise in his films – leaves me speechless. It draws you in and it just never puts me off.”
In competition at the Film Festival, Crimes of the Future is the first film from award-winning Canadian director David Cronenberg in eight years. The sci-fi drama tells of a dystopian future in which people have the opportunity to use technology to change their bodies and no longer feel pain. With the help of his assistant Caprice (Léa Seydoux), Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen) grows new organs and then removes them again during performances.
Kristen Stewart (32) plays Timlin, who runs a new organs office with a colleague as she tries to gain control of a newly developing market.
The film received minutes of applause after its premiere on Monday evening. Although deformed organs, sewn-up mouths and all kinds of morbid things are shown throughout, only a few people left the hall. Not even scenes like the one in which Caprice enjoys sucking on her partner’s wound (which can be opened with a sewn-in zipper) caused much shock.
“Surgery is the new sex,” Timlin once whispered in Saul’s ear, and Cronenberg’s bloody scenes are indeed all staged with great relish. Cronenberg doesn’t enjoy showing this world at all, Stewart said Tuesday. On set, she felt, “We’re talking about some pretty fucked up shit, but he loves it.”
The 79-year-old director also spoke about the political dimension of his film on Tuesday. He wrote the screenplay 20 years ago, but even then you could feel that it was going to be like this. “It’s a constant in history that somewhere in the world there is a government that wants to control the population. And that means once again: The bodies are the reality. What do you control? You control the bodies of the people. That also includes speaking and being able to express yourself.” (dpa)