eXistenZ


Starring Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jude Law, Ian Holm, Don McKellar, Sarah Polley, Willem Dafoe, Christopher Ecclestone. Written by David Cronenberg. Directed by David Cronenberg.

Allegra Geller (Leigh) is one of the top virtual reality game designers in existence. She has assembled a focus group to test out her latest game eXistenZ. But this is no Sega or Nintendo game. A fleshy, living pod with nipple like controls contains the game, and participants must be fitted with a bioport at the base of the spine where an umbilical cord from the pod is inserted directly into the human nervous system. Allegra states "You don't play the game. The game plays you." But as the game is being downloaded, a crazed man shoots her with a meat gun. He is a "realist" who is against gamesmakers and their distortions of reality for profit and potentially dangerous mind control. She is whisked away by Ted (Law), a company marketing flak. They need to test the game and Ted doesn't yet have a pod, so Allegra drives him to see a gas-station attendant named Gas, a games enthusiast who installs the pods. But he turns out to be a "realist", and installs a faulty bioport which short circuits the pod.

The pod is injured and needs surgery. They drive to an old ski chalet, out of use because no one skis anymore - people experience it through a game instead. A Hungarian surgeon (Holm), an old friend of Allegra's, fixes the pod. With Ted's new bioport, they enter the game, meeting a Russian double agent (McKellar) and a host of mutant animals and fish created for both unique food tastes and virtual reality games parts. They travel in and out of the game, but begin to lose any feel for when they are in the game, and when they are experiencing reality.

Cronenberg's first film since the eerily excellent Crash, he has gone back to his science fiction roots, and has included a host of his usual weird inventions - the fleshy pod, the mutant animals, the space age virtual reality helmets. Treading some of the same ground as the Matrix, both films concern human beings plugged into a virtual reality world, unable to sense where the game ends and reality begins. But where the Matrix is high tech explosions and slam-bang martial arts, eXistenZ is a quieter, more thoughtful piece, sometimes a bit slow, but injecting humour and philosophy into the mix. It suggests that more and more, people prefer video games, TV, theme parks, even movies than their day to day reality. And in the movie, not only are the players never sure when the game ends, we in the audience are also never sure. Cronenberg seems to be saying that life is just a big game, and that reality is difficult to put a finger on. He has said he included the focus group sections as a satire on what often happens with studio films, where they are molded to fit the "average" person's tastes. Allegra says "people have been programmed to accept so little, yet the possibilities are so great." and Cronenberg has consistently produced films on the edge of reality with a unique and often unusual vision.

Leigh is excellent as usual, exuding almost a controlled lust for the game, and a preference for it over reality. Law, and especially McKellar, provide interesting backup - you are never quite sure of who they are and their motives. Actually, most of the characters are not what they seem, and the acting and dialogue is often a bit artificial to simulate their being characters in a game. Cronenberg has said he doesn't believe realism can be achieved in film, so he doesn't try, and the characters in his films often act in mechanical, sometimes cold ways. Yet eXistenZ is one of his most accessible and even humourous films. Cronenberg is an acquired taste, and althoug not up to the standard of Crash, but it is an often interesting expose on reality and eXistence.




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