David Cronenberg
Crimes of the Future (1970)

If you enjoyed Cronenberg's latest film "Crimes of the Future" just released in theaters, it's a good idea to go back and check out his eponymous film made in 1970, just to get an idea of the stylistic evolution of the author.

Set in an imaginary 1997, sort of a silent film with the voice-over of the protagonist Adrian Tripod, it is Cronenberg's second feature film lasting just over an hour. The story describes a post-apocalyptic scenario where, due to a prominent dermatologist named Antoine Rouge, some cosmetics with lethal effects have been marketed, causing a pandemic (a term currently unfortunately well-known..) that led to the extermination of the female population of the human race. Not only that, the virus (called "Rouge's disease") begins to affect the surviving men who try to adapt to the changed living conditions. In this widespread disaster, the dermatologist Adrian Tripod, director of the House of Skin clinic, wanders among scientific institutes in the vain search for his mentor Antoine Rouge, with the intent to find a solution to the modern plague. It will be a fruitless search, but the protagonist will meet bizarre and dreamlike male characters (demonstrating that it is not possible to live without a counterpart of the opposite sex).

Without providing further details on the plot developments (any Cronenberg film is a source of surprises that delight every cinephile worthy of the name), it's worth mentioning, however, a few key points that will later be developed in the director's subsequent filmography.

First, Cronenberg, like a good cosmic pessimist in the style of Leopardi, envisions a dystopian future for the human race trying to put on a brave face. This may disconcert us as viewers, but if we are not aware of certain current trends under the surface, we might then find ourselves facing unpleasant surprises lurking around the corner..

Then, in this early work, David Cronenberg begins to show us how our human body can become subject to manipulations. This reveals that horrid side in the director's work that hints at repulsive details like fetishism, pedophilia, rape, as well as the existence of a repellent white foamy substance that oozes from the body orifices of individuals infected by the virus. Of course, those who believe in the mystique of Venus Callipygian and the handsome Adonis according to the schemes of Greek classical beauty will be scandalized, but I cannot completely disagree with the director.

Certainly, the film has a certain hermetic quality; it does not lend itself to easy interpretation, so much so that a critic like Kim Newman, a scholar of horror cinema, qualified it as "proof that you can be interesting and boring at the same time." But, notwithstanding a certain naive spirit typical of many youthful directorial trials, it remains the case that this "Crimes of the Future" is still viewed with a certain interest and evaluated from the perspective of an author who, from "Scanners" onward, will greatly contribute to the cause of good modern cinema tout court.