Crimes of the Future (2022)

 "Surgery is the new sex."

From looking at the iMDb rating, this film isn't rated very highly. I'll come straight to it: I think it's brilliant. Those who dislike it, I suspect, were looking for something else. David Cronenberg doing body horror again after all these decades, after all, creates certain expectations. People will expect this to be like his body horror of the '70s and '80s. And, yes, there's some of that. Yet, like all Cronenberg's films of the last decade or two, this is entirely a film of ideas.

It's a future set in a pleasingly low budget society, claustrophobic, studio bound, beautifully and artistically shot with precious little nature to stop Cronenberg being in total control of his artistic environment. Only the first, shocking sequence, with its plastic bin eating and its graphic scene of filicide, takes place anywhere near nature.

No: this is a world in which both pain and infection are things of the past, and surgery is therefore a light matter, while the human body is evolving fast (let us briefly handwave away that this isn't how natural selection works, just as Saul handwaves away the impossibility of traits arising from surgery being inherited) in order to survive in a plastic, polluted environment.

Only in this world can exist a couple like Captice and Saul, using the routine surgery of the removal of his emerging mutant body organs as performance art. This despite the scepticism of the Detective to whom Saul is reporting, who scoffs at random emerging organs being “Picasso, Deschamps, Francis Bacon, perhaps?

Yet there is also a blatant subtext of surgery as sex, as fetish. This is, of course, not the first time Cronenberg has explored such themes, and one may certainly raise an eyebrow at this. 

Body horror abounds- tattooed organs, a zipped abdomen- but the ideas just keep coming in this thoughtful, disturbing dystopia. Cronenberg has most certainly still got it

A Dangerous Method (2011)

“Angels always speak German...”

I've been watching a lot of David Cronenberg films lately, something which stems from both an increasing admiration of the diversity and extraordinary quality of his work and their ease of availability, particularly as several of them have been available on Amazon Prime of late. Sadly, I've seen rather more of the later films which tend to be subtitled than the older, more stereotypically Cronenberg "body horror" films which Amazon Prime seems unable to subtitle although its rival Netflix seems to have no trouble subtitling everything. Still, this superb film can't be blamed for that, and is another example of Cronenberg's late career peak.I hope, with increasing desperation, that he hasn't retired.

Superficiall this is a typical late Cronenberg film in that the camerawork and mood feel like Cronenberg and, of course, Viggo Mortensen plays a prominent role. Yet this is anything but a typical sort of film for Cronenberg to helm, being an adaptation of a period stage play that eschews the visual in favour of psychology. In every sense.

This is a fascinating portrait of three figures in intellectual figures- the well-known figures of Sigmund Freud and Paul Jung and the less famous yet pivotal figure of Sabina Spielrein.The film deals with several themes which echo those of psychoanalysis- father figures, sexual repression and guilt, and a very Belle Epoch approach to kink and kink-shaming, but also such things as social class and the tension between a comfortable yet repressed bourgeois life and a Bohemian life of freedom without security. It's a fascinating film of ideas, in that sense reminiscent of Cronenberg's Cosmopolis, but also a film full of repressed passion.

The whole thing is anchored by the three central performances of Mortensen, Michael Fassbender and expecially Keira Knightley, whose performance is simly extraordinary. A splendid film.

A History of Violence (2005)

“In this family we do not solve our problems by hitting people.

David Cronenberg is known for a certain type of film. This is very different from that type. Yet it's a very different type of film- an action film that's based around nuanced character and acting, and rather intelligent and thoughtful among all the violence, anyone?

It's hard, indeed impossible to discuss this film without spoilers. But it's about more than the twist; it's about how we can all construct our identities, about interiority, about the hope of redemption, about the violence that lurks within us, about what may lie beneath respectable and upstanding lives, about the alien nature of other people and the impossibility of truly knowing them, even if you're married to them, in love and still have good (and fetishistic) sex. But then, of course, in a very deep sense Edie does know who Tom is now. The past is a foreign country.

There's enough graphic violence here to qualify this as an action film, yet it's clever enough to simultaneously appeal to the arty film crowd. Viggo Mortensen gives a towering and dualistic performance that is truly extraordinary, although credit is also very much due to Maria Bello and to William Hurt, who shows his extraordinary versatility in a part very different from usual.

This is an extraordinary film, and one of the finest I've seen for a good many months.

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

"The eagles are coming!"

So. I finally find three and a bit to complete the trilogy, a feat possible only during the Chrimbo limbo at a time when the little one is ith the in-laws. And yes, my disgracefully pretentious beginning was indeed a reference to Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf... no, stay with me. This blog post won't dissolve into pretentiousness, I assure you. I've had a bottle of wine, honest...

Tolkien was a scholar of Old English, and of other ancient Germanic tongues and heroic culture. This all, of course, was perverted for racist reasons- the most racist reasons imaginable- by Hitler's twelve year reign of unspeakableness. A millennium of Germanic literature must be held to exist on its on terms and not be defined by these monsters- as Tolkien himself makes clear in his response to the impertinent question from a Nazi publisher as to whether he has "Jewish blood". Ingeld and Beowulf may have lived in what we called the Dark Ages, but they must not be tainted by the far greater barbarism of the Nazis.

So, that aside... well, obviously, this is superb. The same stellar cast aside from the usual touch of plywood from orlanso Bollom, wit even John Rhys Davies being a splendid actor in spite of being a right wing conspiracy theorist twat; superb visuals and battle scenes that enthrall even me, perennially bored by such things; the narrative splendidly remixed for cinema in a way that works well dramatically. There may be no Scouring of the Shire, and Aragorn's use of Kinsfoil may be neglected somewhat even in the extended edition, but it's good not to have quite as many endings as in the novel.

What strikes me, though, more than either of the other two instalments, is how much the ethos of the film- that is, the defence of Gondor against the orcs and not the boring Frodo subplot, less dull by far than in the novel but still dragging- owes to the emotion and noble warrior passion of Anglo-Saxon poetry, which is not exactly about romance or daffodils, homoerotic overtones aside. Although Elrond’s words to Aragorn being in iambic pentameter may not be quite contemporaneous with this- but Tolkien’s literary bent is reflected in the dialogue, for which we should be grateful.

The film, and indeed the trilogy, is a triumph. Even though Christopher Lee isn’t in this one.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)

“I’ll have no pointy earer outscoring me!”

This is probably my least favourite of the trilogy but only because it’s the middle one and therefore the least dramatic. It’s still awesome and features the extraordinary Battle of Helm’s Deep. Never mind that Mrs Llamastrangler asked halfway through if they’d walked far and had to be told that it featured scenes of brisk walking, jogging and even a bit of horse riding..

The main problem with LOTR after this point is, of course, that all the exciting adventures of Gandalf, Aragorn etc are contrasted with the crushing fullness of Frodo and Sam walking very slowly towards Mordor in hundreds of pages of never-ending prose where very little happens. Peter Jackson, quite sensibly, cuts all this down rather a lot while expanding on the good stuff. It all looks superb, of course, and makes you want to go to New Zealand, and it’s all brilliant for the same reasons as the first film. The same cast continues to be magnificent for the same reasons, with the honourable additions of our newly introduced Rohirrim characters- Bernard Hill as Theoden, Miranda Otto as Eowyn, Karl Urban as Elmer and of course Chucky himself, Brad Dourif as Wormtongue. Rohan looks magnificent, the return of Gandalf is perfectly shot and the rejuvenation of Theoden is a joy to behold. And the Ents look extraordinary.

As for the Battle of Helm’s Deep, I’m not usually good with extended battle scenes, with their visual nature and lack of dialogue, but this kept me gripped with its twists and its turns. It’s an awesome finale to an awesome film. Is it just me, though, that finds it a little odd and jarring that Frodo is treated as a “master” by Gollum and as a boss by Sam essentially because he’s the country squire, something which may have been unthinkingly normal to Tolkien’s generation but looks decidedly odd now. But the class politics of LOTR are perhaps for another day...

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

"Nobody tosses a dwarf!"

This is only my second viewing of this or, indeed, any of this magnificent trilogy. And, yes, with an appropriate nod to YouTube's How It should Have Ended (watch it for LOTR), it's magnificent. The three sodding hours actually passed very pleasantly.

The Lord of the Rings is an odd book, or trilogy, however you’re counting. I’m glad I read it at twelve, appendixes and all; I enjoyed it very much, but I fear the charms of its 1,200 plus pages would have likely eluded me if I’d been any older. Written by an Old English academic- I once cited an academic work of his while writing an essay on Beowulf- and intended to create the Germanic and Finnish myths he so loves, it isn’t a style of writing we’re used to in modern times. These days we have a literary genre called “fantasy”; that wasn’t so clearly the case at the time, and indeed The Hobbit was written for children. One odd thing about Lord of the Rings is the huge change from children’s pride in the shire to epic narrative for the rest of the novel but it is, of course, a work of genius.

So how does Peter Jackson film such a book? Well, brilliantly. His native New Zealand is a magnificent setting, and his cast is superb- Ian McKellen May stand out, but Christopher Lee is utter perfection as Saruman. Yet just as important is the magnificent direction and the scene that, for me, stands out is Christopher Lee’s performance in the scene where we discover that Saruman has betrayed Gandalf- the scene is a perfect synthesis of actor and camera as the extraordinary subtleties of Lee’s performance are echoes perfectly by the movements of the camera.

Wisely, Jackson does a faithful adaptation without cutting corners and, indeed, takes things from the appendixes to flesh out the narrative- particularly in an expanded role for Saruman which helps with the plot at this early stage but also, with Sauron himself being just an eye, giving a face to what the Fellowship is fighting. Seeing the Shire on screen makes is stand out from the high fantasy surrounding it: it’s odd to see a British work of high fantasy that features American crops such as tobacco and potatoes- or perhaps the “weed” is something else? It would make a lot of sense.

There’s one thing I don’t get, though. What’s so special about Sean Bean’s “One does not just walk into Mordor?” It’s a fairly nondescript line so why all them memes?

Eastern Promises (2007)

"London is a city of whores and queers."

I confess that I need to see more early period avid Cronenberg for his trademark body horror, and I will. Yet up to now I've only seen some of his late period non-fantasy stuff- Crash and Cosmopolis, both excellent. So what will I make of Eastern Promises?

Well, the directing is excellent, of course, from the framing of the first shot onwards. This is Cronenberg's London film, a tribute to what remains very much an imperial capital long after its empire has gone, a melting pot, a metropolis and world city far out of proportion to the nation of which it is capital, and a city which now, alas, faces the catastrophe of Brexit.

And yet... despite the excellence of Naomi Watt and the superbly ambiguous Viggo Mortensen, this is a very good but hardly superlative gangster film with both a conscience and an aesthetic for violence (which is excellent throughout). The famous twist is... fairly predictable, and what we have is a film about the Russian mafia, albeit a perfectly good one, and fascinating about the context with the tattoos and that depressingly prevalent Russian homophobia, but this is less good than either of the other Cronenberg films I've seen so far.

What it does show, though, is how many in less fortunate parts of our continent still see London as being paved with gold, so they come, and are abused and disappointed, hopefully not to the extent of poor Tatiana. But what we have here is a good film that, while well-directed, feels more like television than film.,