THE SHROUDS
****
Directed by David Cronenberg.
Starring Vincent Cassel, Diane Kruger, Guy Pearce.
Horror, Canada & France, 120 minutes, Certificate 15.
Released in cinemas in the UK on July 4th by Vertigo Releasing
It seems in David Cronenberg’s films there is usually a declarative statement that distils its philosophy. “Long live the new flesh” from VIDEODROME perhaps being one of the most memorable. For his latest film THE SHROUDS, Cronenberg kicks off its twisted plot with the opening line of “Grief is rotting your teeth.” Immediately it brings to mind the themes that have so often preoccupied the Canadian auteur, especially as of late. The degradation of the body, whether due to age, illness or scientific and/or environmental meddling crossed with a look at emotions such as grief, regret and jealousy, is now looked at with an unflinching eye that was once so preoccupied with pushing the boundaries of body horror. While the unstoppable march towards death seems to take up more space in Cronenberg’s mind it proves to be yet another step in his ongoing transformation into something more cerebral yet as beguilingly strange as ever.
Vincent Cassel plays Karsh, an inventor whose grief over the death of his wife is not only degrading his teeth but has driven him to invent the titular robes that forge a connection between the living and the dead. Karsh’s shrouds allow the living to observe their loved ones after burial through miniature hi-res cameras encased within the deceased's robes that record their gradual decay underground, available to watch through monitors installed in their gravestones. Unable to fully let go of his wife Becca, after her death from a particularly aggressive form of cancer, Karsh is disturbed by the appearance of mysterious nodules that have appeared on Becca’s skeleton. The desecration of Becca’s grave, along with eight other bodies, soon has Karsh looking for answers but getting lost in a maze of tech driven conspiracy with side helpings of obsession, jealousy, sex and identity wrapped up in a mystery that in its elusiveness somehow seems to threaten another kind of transformation that no one is quite ready for.
Originally conceived as a Netflix mini-series, Cronenberg has packed in a number of themes, plots and sub-plots into its two hour running time here. Somehow it never feels overstuffed or impenetrable. The cool detachment that has infected his work over the past two decades is as present as ever but there is a sadness inflected throughout that affects the viewer in such a way that hearkens back to THE FLY. No doubt a reflection brought about by the death of Cronenberg’s wife Carolyn, this strain of storytelling, both subtextually and visually, particularly in Karsh’s recollections of Becca’s increasingly mutilated body as illness and surgery transform her, drives the film along more than its increasingly elusive plotting.
At the same time there is a mordant wit present throughout. While Diane Kruger delivers a vulnerable, aching performance as Becca she also provides a biting, blackly comic turn as her identical sister Terry. Her relationship with her brother-in-law is a fascinating one culminating in a twisted fashion that is reminiscent of CRASH in its blackly comic nature.
There was once a futuristic edge to Cronenberg’s films, whether it was in the display and melding of technology and the human body. It could be argued that we’re in the future now, but one that is very different from what was once envisioned. The symbiotic relationship with technology is displayed in a far blandly familiar yet no less invasive way, mainly thanks to AI, which Cronenberg looks at here with an personal assistant/avatar named Hunny, also voiced by Kruger, which may have motives of its own. While not as immediate as Cronenberg’s previous viscera fuelled visions this is still as transgressive and as fascinating as ever. Cronenberg may be a completely different director and writer than the one he started out as, much like the subjects in many of his films. As he bravely faces up to the greatest transformation that claims us all in the end, this is only further proof that he is still one of the most fascinating creative figures in cinema today.
Iain MacLeod