eXistenZ Jude Law, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Ian Holm Director: David Cronenberg
Technology is an overrepresented theme in modern cinema. From action-studded adventures such as The Matrix to overly convoluted visual feasts such as the recent Tron Legacy, many use the subject to awe rather than inspire, and few actually question technology's role in society. But eXistenZ, from shock artist David Cronenberg, is thankfully one such film.
Initially written off as one of Cronenberg's weaker efforts after its release, the film came in the middle of a poor streak for the director and also had the bad luck of following the controversy-plagued adaptation of J.G. Ballard's Crash (see review on the left). But time has been kind to the sci-fi mindbender, the film's technological predictions and philosophical questions seeming more important than ever.
In terms of its technological theme, eXistenZ acts as a spiritual sequel to Cronenberg's 1980s home-video horror Videodrome, where machinery evolved into the biological and organic, focusing instead on the 90s obsession with video games and virtual reality. Set in a near future where interactive diversions allow users to literally escape by connecting their spinal chords directly into fleshy game consoles, the story taps into a virtual world to play double duty as a sci-fi shocker and black satire.
Jennifer Jason Leigh plays Allegra Geller, a leading game designer who has created eXistenZ, a game that has 'realists' up in arms over its invasion of everyday life by the artificial. Ambushed by assassins during its debut, Geller escapes with a young trainee, played by a pre-fame Jude Law, as well as the only copy of the game. Fearing that eXistenZ has been damaged, Leigh convinces Law to test the game with her. Cue a world of depraved madness for Cronenberg to explore, one where the lines between the real and the virtual are constantly blurred.
But beneath the mystifying and the monstrous are deeper undercurrents of maturity previously unexplored in Cronenberg's work. Touching on themes of existentialism (just look at the title), free will and, most importantly, the role of technology, eXistenZ's narrative was a product of pre-millennial panic, its tale of a forward-thinking radical battling extremist opposition being a thinly veiled take on the lack of choices afforded to author Salman Rushdie.