Crimes Of The Future: Control, Conformity, and Autonomy
Content warning: child murder, body horror and gore, surgery that shows organs and blood, mutilated flesh, and unsettling imagery.
The following discussion contains major film spoilers. If you haven’t watched Crimes of The Future, please consider watching before proceeding to read this editorial.
As the future unfolds, the human species has begun to experience the accelerated growth of internal organs as the body undergoes transformations and mutilations in response to adapting to the synthetic world they are living in. Performance artist Saul Tenser and his performance partner Caprice have capitalised on the neo-organs that Tenser grows rapidly, removing them for audiences wanting to witness the taboo metamorphosis of the human body. There’s growing concern that those who grow new organs (Accelerated Evolution Syndrome) will pass on the neo-organs genetically to their offspring, the next generation no longer considered humans, only creatures.
Making a return to horror, master director and writer, David Cronenberg has created another masterpiece with the release of Crimes Of The Future. With many elements a salute to his previous work, Crimes of The Future examines the art behind inner and outer beauty through a political lens. Cronenberg’s iconic storytelling is on display with reflections and statements on authoritarian control, deviancy, and the human condition; revealing the reluctance to embrace change, demonstrated through the creation of the National Organ Registry. The people of the future are content to have control of their physical autonomy controlled through state agencies (The New Vice police task force) that work to eliminate the potential of neo- organs and changing evolution of the human race. This reluctance to change is demonstrated through the performance art of Tenser and Caprice who recognise that through body horror, surgery, and eroticism, people can try to reconnect with the elements that once made them human—exerting the only sense of control that they believe they have.
Timlin (Kristen Stewart) possesses a strange amount of macabre curiosity when it comes to Tenser and his Accelerated Evolution Syndrome. At a performance, Timlin whispers to Tenser that surgery is the new sex, alluding that humans have lost their erotic connection to one another and have replaced it with a sensual scalpel carving through skin in an attempt to ignite pain and pleasure. Timlin is the epitome of the tipping of mankind towards change, moving from resistance to change, she idolises Tenser and his ability to rapidly grow organs; the moving forward of humankind. Wanting to participate in surgery, imagining Tenser as the surgeon, Timlin is the courage and yearning of adaptation, fighting against the authoritarian bureaucracy of her employment appointment at the National Organ Registry. Sexual desires and motivations are represented by her openness and curiosity, serving to show how to work against the conforming nature of authority, thrusting her strange demeanour and using it to her advantage to learn more. Timlin appears to be a unique depiction of the future’s acceptance of gore and mutilation, only understanding the eroticism, rebellion, and sensuality of performance surgery after attending a demonstration performed by Tenser and Caprice. The eroticism of the performative and rebellious nature of Tenser’s art is being depicted through LifeForm technicians, Router and Berst (Nadia Litz and Tanaya Beatty) who strip naked to pose inside the Sark model of Caprice and Saul’s autopsy machine.
While Timlin is the message of change and adaptation, Tenser and Caprice represent the conformity to resisting human evolution. Tenser’s purpose? To serve as the stubborn aversion to change and freedom, reflecting the hard synthetic environment through stoicism and conformity—agreeing to assist in reprimanding a group of evolving activists that are attempting to use Tenser to demonstrate to the world what the next stage of human evolution could look like. Tenser and Caprice represent the resistance to evolution, constantly removing newly grown organs that have been mandated by the Registry. As I write this the decision to overturn Roe v Wade was handed down in the Supreme Court of the United States of America. It seems appropriate that there is discussion regarding the ability for the government to want you to relinquish the rights to your body, it goes without saying that there is a paradigm of government and authoritarian control that bleeds into the narrative of Crimes of The Future. The current events in the United States move to subject those with uteruses to mandated pregnancy and birth.
In the beginning of the film we witness the murder of a small child (8-years-old) by their mother, Djuna (Lihi Kornowski); a woman adamantly against the creatures that they have been lead to believe evolve from genetic repercussions of Accelerrated Organ Syndrome. After murdering her child, Djuna calls her ex-husband Lang Dotrice (Scott Speedman) to pick up the “creature” that is his son. The mother is incarcerated even though the authorities aren’t too certain she even committed homicide, Lang Dotrice having taken the body, his motivation to prove how his son’s body had evolved to survive in their sythnthetic hellscape of a dystopian future. Recruiting Tenser and Caprice to perform an autopsy on Brecken, Lang subverts their purpose for his own gain—exposing audiences to the future of neo-organs,. Brecken representing the future of the human race, that he was able to evolve and adapt without becoming a monster, the antithesis of what the authorities had foreshadowed the human race of becoming. Djuna taking away Brecken’s autonomy through smothering him to death, believing the authorities that he is a monster, a misnomer, when in fact Brecken was the future of where rebellion and non-conformity can take humans in the future.
Like most Cronenberg films that explore the horrors of our bodies, the special effects take front and centre in the crafting of the story. The special effects team, headed up by Supervisor George Alahouzos (Dogtooth and Dark Moon Rising) have built an intelligent looking dystopian future. The special effects and props incorporated throughout are reminiscent of eXistenz (2009), the surgery pods obscure and dystopian to the point of resembling human skeletons. The imperfect looking pieces of technology resemble contorted bodies and move in ways that are unsettling and poignant; they are meant to help humans do basic activities like sleep and eat, routines that have been lost over time. It appears that the inhabitants of the future have been slowly accepting the loss of their humanity over time. The interesting contrast of the human body adapting or evolving, therefore causing issues with bodily function shows the human inability to cope with rapid change. This is further supported by the different types of machinery that are used to assist humans in their physical state in the consumption of food, although this isn’t necessary for all people, and the fact that it exists shows that there are elements of human evolution and that have not been explained by science or backed by authorities. The machinery represents the person's desire to have their autonomy returned, to be able to function once again, and to not have to give in to the evolution that is occurring to their bodies. While there are allusions to wanting autonomy, Tenser has relinquished his bodily autonomy to these machines made by LifeForm; allowing them to assist in his sleep, feeding him, providing him with scientific data regarding the growth of his organs.
Throughout the film, we witness a performance of “building” surgery that demonstrates a plastic surgeon carving into the skin of participants in a way that creates a sense of unease but contributes to the story with a deep impact and statement regarding how we perceive ourselves in the wider world, taking control of that perception. This being easier for surgeons to perform as the pain threshold for humans no longer exists, their only connection to humanity and humility severed. Performance artists display live exhibitions where their faces are gruesomely transformed and folded, showing a potential for resistance, but taking it one step at a time. It’s possible that these demonstrations of body mutilation are what they believe to be the next step in adaptation but still playing within the rules established by authorities. The “crimes” of the future, being evolution and adaptation, both out of the control of the individual and the punishment of those who act against the restrictions that are placed against them. It appears that most individuals in the film behave within the scope of the restraints that are provided to them by authority; those who break out dancing on the line of acceptable (conforming) and criminal. It’s interesting to see a depiction of individuals who are so accepting of authoritarian guidelines. Cronenberg does a brilliant job of showing how easy it is for the confines of society to dictate what we accept when it comes to control.
