Crimes of the Future Movie Storyline. It sounds just as ambitious, taking a deep dive into the not-so-distant future in which humankind is learning to adapt to its synthetic surroundings. This evolution moves humans beyond their natural state and into a metamorphosis, which alters their biological makeup. While some embrace the limitless potential of trans-humanism, others attempt to police it.
Either way, Accelerated Evolution Syndrome, is spreading fast. Saul Tenser is a beloved performance artist who has embraced this new state, sprouting new and unexpected organs in his body. Along with his partner Caprice, Tenser has turned the removal of these organs into a spectacle for his loyal followers to marvel at in real time theater. But with both the government and a strange subculture taking note, Tenser is forced to consider what would be his most shocking performance of all.
Crimes of the Future is a 2022 internationally co-produced body horror film written and directed by David Cronenberg. It stars Viggo Mortensen, Léa Seydoux and Kristen Stewart. The film premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, where it was in competition for the Palme d’Or and received a six-minute standing ovation. It marks Cronenberg’s return to the science fiction and horror genres for the first time since eXistenZ (1999). The film was released on June 3, 2022 in the United States by Neon.
About the Story
At an unspecified date in the future, the disastrous effects of pollution and climate change have compelled the creation of significant advances in biotechnology, including the invention of machines and (analog) computers that can directly interface with and control bodily functions. At the same time, humankind itself has experienced a number of biological changes of indeterminate origin.
Most significant among these changes is the disappearance of physical pain and infectious disease for an overwhelming majority (allowing for surgery to be safely performed on conscious people in ordinary settings), but other humans experience more radical alterations to their physiology. One of them, an eight-year-old boy named Brecken, displays the innate ability to consume and digest plastics as food. Convinced that he is inhuman, Brecken’s mother smothers him with a pillow, leaving his corpse to be found by her ex-husband Lang.
Saul Tenser and Caprice are a world-renowned performance artist couple. They take advantage of Tenser’s “accelerated evolution syndrome,” a disorder that forces his body to constantly develop new vestigial organs, by surgically removing them before a live audience. The syndrome leaves Tenser in constant pain and with severe respiratory and digestive discomfort; he is consequently reliant on a number of specialized biomechanical devices, including a bed, a machine through which Caprice performs surgery on him, and a chair that assists him with eating.
Tenser and Caprice meet with bureaucrats in charge of the National Organ Registry, a governmental office designed to uphold the state’s restrictions on human evolution by cataloguing and storing newly evolved organs. One of the bureaucrats, the nervy Timlin, becomes captivated by Tenser’s artistic goals. At a successful show of Tenser’s, she tells him that “surgery is the new sex,” a sentiment that Tenser appears to embrace.
A governmental police unit seeks to use Tenser to infiltrate a group of radical evolutionists. Without telling Caprice, Tenser meets a series of contacts through other biological performance art shows (including one featuring a dancer with ears sewn all over his body) that lead him to the evolutionist cell. One of them, former cosmetic surgeon Nasatir, creates a vaginal zippered cavern in Tenser’s stomach, which Caprice uses to access Tenser’s organs in an oral sex act. Caprice continues to network with other performance artists, eventually choosing to receive decorative cosmetic surgery on her forehead.
Tenser meets with Timlin, who reveals to him the agenda of the evolutionists: they have chosen to modify their digestive system to make them able to eat plastics and other synthetic chemicals. Their principal food is a purple processed “candy bar” of toxic waste, fatally poisonous to others. Lang is the leader of the cell; his son Brecken had been born with the ability to eat plastic, proving the inaccuracy of the government’s critical stance on human evolution. Timlin tries to initiate sex with Tenser, but he says he is unable to have “the old kind of sex.”
Crimes of the Future (2022)
Directed by: David Cronenberg
Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Léa Seydoux, Kristen Stewart, Don McKellar, Scott Speedman, Welket Bungué, Lihi Kornowski, Tanaya Beatty, Yorgos Karamihos, Yorgos Pirpassopoulos, Nadia Litz
Screenplay by: David Cronenberg
Production Design by: Carol Spier
Cinematography by: Douglas Koch
Film Editing by: Christopher Donaldson
Costume Design by: Mayou Trikerioti
Set Decoration by: Dimitra Sourlantzi
Art Direction by: Dimitris Katsikis, Kimberley Zaharko
Music by: Howard Shore
MPAA Rating: R for strong disturbing violent content and grisly images, graphic nudity and some language.
Distributed by: MK2/Mile End (Canada), Miramax (France)
Release Date: June 3, 2022
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