eXistenZ - 1999

I just finished rewatching this Cronenberg film for about the third time, and dang if I don't feel right now like I want to rewatch a bunch of his older work It's just so damn weird!

I've seen eXistenZ possibly the most of any of his movies. Seems like a strange one to pick, especially since in my mind I like Videodrome and Naked Lunch more, and I love Crash and Dead Ringers.Yet, I do like eXistenZ and I think it's as good as a lot of his work, and perhaps less known.

Jude Law and Jennifer Jason Leigh lead up an all star cast in this insane and for sure slightly confusing entry. In the beginning, Jude Law is at a demonstration of Jennifer's new video game eXistenZ when a man in the audience gets up and tries to assassinate her. He shoots her in the shoulder and Jude takes her away, and soon the two of them are embarking on a strange journey in both the real world and in the game world, and of course the lines between the two begin to blur.

My first thought watching this was, damn, I miss these effects. Real and extremely strange, props and devices and decorations are always present in Cronenberg films. There's the famous bone gun which I've remembered for years, and there's the vidoe game consoles themselves, which are part insect and part genitals. Every time these characters jack into the game, they fondle this weird small pink thing that is decorated with things that like like orifices or nipples. The sexual connotation is high as the main characters also have sexually significant "ports" installed into their backs that they finger or tongue sometimes.

This movie was super ahead of it's time. It predicts a world in which people are overly consumed with games to the point where they believe more in the game than their real life. Once these people play the games, they just want to stay there, and it's fucking fucked up just like our current world is. This predicted the ugly turn games would take, and in this movie there's a strong theme of being against the technology of the game.

Second to that, the movie was obviously outdone by The Matrix, but this sort of plot was surely huge at the time. The whole fake reality thing might seem contrived right now, but this was made at the same time as Matrix, and should not be looked at as a copycat.

Not Cronenberg's best, but for sure a 4 star film.