Once more we return to the class of ’99—it’s funny to think that a quarter-century ago, the lines between digital and physical reality felt dangerously blurred, and that the promise of information revolution felt as terrifying as it did enlightening. The more things change, and all that. So with that in mind, here we talk about a reality-bending adventures in virtual reality involving elements of body horror and questioning that which lies around you…no, not that one. Instead of Keanu and bullet time, we have the off-kilter grisly creations of a certain encarmine Canadian—here’s my take on eXistenZ. Because, kids, the 90s was a time when you could get away with titles like that!
Coming to us from the body-twisting mind of David Cronenberg, here we start off in a near future setting where total immersion virtual reality videogames are all the rage—and with a cultist underground of people determined to put an end to this. We follow Jude Law putting on a somewhat shaky American accent as he immerses himself into a public demonstration of a new system, perhaps interrupted by those targeting its designer played by Jennifer Jason Leigh…maybe. And from there, both go on the run to secure her vision of a new type of game system that melds with the human body itself.
Existenz is a difficult one to talk about—we start off with interesting and very prognostic questions about people disassociating from reality via made-up virtual spaces. Exactly what we see all around us these days with increasing shut-ins addicted to xbox, or any given social media. Here, it goes a step further as the system becomes a part of you, or so we think.
A lot of the movie is somewhat of a slow burn dealing with an espionage story inside the game that may be part of a real espionage story. Still, we have some shaky accents from appearing actors like Ian Holm, though Willem Defoe makes a very memorable cameo as he often does. Jude’s own American tones get very shaky, and some might not be super impressed by the acting on view. We do have Cronenberg’s characteristic touches with a hideous organic ‘gristle gun’ appearing, but there’s certainly no camera-spinning visuals like we had in the Matrix that same year.
But—this is one where the ending really does change and recontexutalize absolutely everything. In fact, it is somewhat set up beforehand, with little tidbits as the the games influence behaviour within them and so on. It is something that does force you to go back and question all you see and how it fits into the new setup—and as far as looking at the nature of reality, for a moment at least, perhaps it does it a little better than the Wachkowskis did. However, that all comes down to how well you follow on everything beforehand.
That leaves this as a purposefully odd movie where some of the hokeyness may or may not be deliberate, and where you have to digest it all to not miss out…not everyone may be convinced, but for a smaller-budget project? I do appreciate the thought, and as always, Cronenberg leaves us with something to talk about at least. Between this, Matrix, Dark City and 13th Floor, movies about the twisting of what we see before us were in vogue for at least a moment…and it certainly feels that 25 years later, in a different context that sees some of these predictions of disjointed realities come true, it’s questions we may start to ask once more.
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