At “The Shrouds” New York Film Festival screening, I caught some giggles in the extended opening credits, which presented an onslaught—could it have been a dozen?—of global production companies, including the luxury fashion house Saint Laurent. Cronenberg has spoken about how Netflix had financed then rejected “The Shrouds” as a series, so it is almost comical that someone of his stature needs to assemble an international syndicate to compile what had to be a modest budget (relative to Netflix’s estimated $17 billion annual content spend). But the streamer’s loss is our gain, as this version of “The Shrouds” feels like a deeply personal passion project, over which Cronenberg maintained majority artistic control.
Drawing from Cronenberg’s Personal Life
The finished project is cheekily bat shit, and gloriously unhinged. It starts with, then veers away from the central story of Karsh (Vincent Cassel, hair slicked back in Cronenbergian fashion) mourning his dead wife Becca (Diane Kruger) to lasso in modern-day conspiracy theories, artificial intelligence and the imaginative manner in which human beings refuse, or explain away the harsh inevitability of death. Ultimately, what Cronenberg is telling us is that grief makes the mind spiral out of control, and no amount of rational thinking can offset tragedy’s toll. Work, sex and hobbies are only temporary distractions, and the mind and heart will chase any harebrained leads that might provide the elusive closure that Becca’s death (from cancer, like Cronenberg’s wife) has robbed from Karsh. And, since this is a Cronenberg film, the body will suffer in tandem.
To that end, the film opens in a dentist’s office, where Karsh is told that grief is making his teeth decay. From there, the light mood darkens—but not without a few chuckles—when Karsh drives to a cemetery (of which he’s a part owner) for a blind date. After the meal, Karsh takes the lucky lady down to a column of gravestones and stands in front of Becca’s plot, with a phone. An image of Becca’s skeleton comes up on the screen, and Karsh’s fascination introduces a new and lurid stage of grieving, nudged between the other seven. No longer worried about his date’s disgust (really, more of a polite it’s-not-you-it’s-me), Karsh zooms in on some nubby marks on Becca’s rotting bones. Cameras? Insects? Invigorated and curious, Karsh then visits Terry (Kruger, again), Becca’s identical twin sister, who never did trust those doctors and surgeons.
A Feat of Macabre Imagination
The fever dream that follows is a feat of macabre imagination, startingly effective because it allows and encourages viewers to fantasize along with Karsh. The flirty chemistry between Karsh and Terry foreshadows that they’ll sleep together, but that relationship has the energy of buddy cops, instead of budding lovers. Karsh had refused to accept Terry’s mistrust of Becca’s doctors, but as the truth, half-truths and anti-truths pile up, she starts to seem like the most sane member of a cadre which includes her jealous and unreliable ex Maury (Guy Pearce), a coder who helped design the technology that drives Karsh’s grave-viewing app, not to mention his saucy virtual assistant Honey (voiced by Kruger).
When Karsh and Terry have sex, it’s intercut with‚and followed by—dream (nightmare?) sequences from Karsh’s past, in which Becca is in bed next to him, only to leave for the hospital, and return a shell of herself. The last time this image comes to Karsh, Becca had a breast (the left, Karsh’s “favorite”) removed, an arm amputated, and her brittle hips shattered by Karsh’s delicate touch. The suffering clouds Karsh’s memory, but revs up his craving for Becca, who he can’t ever have, so her living twin is an adequate surrogate. Linking desire with desperation, Karsh and Terry not only resemble Scottie (James Stewart) and Judy/Madeleine (Kim Novak) from “Vertigo” (1958) but John (Donald Sutherland) and Laura Baxter (Julie Christie) from “Don’t Look Now” (1973), whose unflinching sex scene is unrivaled in its depiction of characters chasing away mental demons through intimate, acrobatic sex.
A Cronenberg Original
Death is an isolating experience for the living—and the dead. So, Cronenberg is generous to present the indirect and direct perspectives, from those with a rooting interest in what Becca has left behind. The agendas of Karsh, Maury, Terry and Karsh’s new girlfriend/client Soo-Min (Sandrine Holt) don’t always coincide, but they’re all working through the coping phase, barreling straight towards acceptance. And if that sounds cloying, Cronenberg barely allows a breather for moviegoers to process the film’s various trapdoors and exits, or audit the plausibility of the varying theories and explanations. The reality is, everyone is vulnerable, verging on insane, and “The Shrouds” delights in considering what death does to the living. The richest aspect of the film is that, true to life—and the onscreen narrative—it offers only sloppy, muddled and incoherent resolutions. No mad scientist but Cronenberg could duplicate this vision.
“The Shrounds” screened at New York Film Festival this year, which runs from September 27th – October 14th. Follow us for more coverage.
