Director David Cronenberg is a funny guy. He's usually not funny-ha-ha, but more like funny-what-did-your-parents-do-to-you-as-a-child, although with his new film he unintentionally mines the dungeons of comedy for material. His films often deal with such levels of psychological horror that they're enough to make you squirm - and that's before he even starts physically manifesting his horror on human flesh. His latest exploration of the impact of technology on humans, "eXistenZ," does all of that and bleeds into the realm of nightmarish physical augmentation that Cronenberg has explicitly toyed with in "Crash" and other films.
"eXistenZ" deals with a future, or at least a different present, in which technology has advanced to the point where video game systems are organic entities that are physically connected to the player. Players jack into a game through a bioport, a fleshy socket on their back that connects directly into the spinal cord. Cronenberg has a field day fetishizing the use of the bioport, and the first half hour of the film is amusingly filled with double entendres, both physical and verbal, galore. I
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| Courtesy of Dimension Films Jennifer Jason Leigh toys with the gizmo that lets her play futuristic video games. |
The film's title doubles as the name of the game that Allegra Geller (Jennifer Jason Leigh), the hottest game designer on the planet, and Ted Pikul (Jude Law), ladder-climbing marketing trainee-cum-bodyguard in which they find themselves embroiled. Allegra is extremely protective of her organic system, as fierce and determined as a mother T-Rex, so when the only version of eXistenZ in existence (hang your disbelief at the door, kids - this is an alternate reality and Cronenberg makes sure that if nothing else, at least the plot's leaps of faith are not subject to our world) is damaged, she coerces the bioport installation-fearing Ted into getting one of the sockets put in his handsome back.
Allegra and Ted jack into a game world that doesn't look that much different from our own. It's not the hi-tech computerized virtual reality that we're used to seeing - or at least imagining - instead appearing normal with a few key differences. The secondary characters in this virtual role-play take their cues from the live players and get stuck in infinite loops; the world is full of Cronenbergian gross-outs involving mutated fish that are used to build the game systems. In this reality-within-reality, Allegra and Ted are again making game systems. The question becomes: Where does the fantasy end and the reality begin? Is there any reality to begin with? And would we know if there wasn't?
The problem with "eXistenZ" is that as Allegra and Ted become more disconnected from reality, the plot becomes disconnected as well, as it jumps into the world of eXistenZ the game. There are giant leaps in logic that never quite pan out as the two attempt to play the game, which turns out to be a role playing extravaganza that even Allegra, the game's designer, doesn't seem too pleased. She complains about the unrealistic minor characters who pass along information (all of whom are saddled with hideously bad accents, which provides the film's shocking ending with a bit of entertainment value as the actors revert back to their true dialects).
"eXistenZ" clocks in at barely 100 minutes and cuts off with typical Cronenberg abruptness that will likely leave viewers clamoring for more action, more explanation and perhaps even more gore. He leaves a lot of questions unanswered and deals not at all with the technological revolution that must have led to biology-based gaming systems, instead choosing to drop us smack in the middle of a slightly familiar world to which he has made his own modifications. Cronenberg imagines that technology has advanced to the point where reality is virtually undetectable, and the only way we know the score is if the director - or the game designer, if you will - chooses to reveal it to us. The future may not be digital after all, but a nightmarish organic entity capable of the most terrible nightmares and the most beautiful dreams.
04-19-99
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