Four Theses after watching the whole of Crimes of The Future (2022) : Crimes against cinema ?
More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
9 September
Four Theses after dutifully watching the whole of Crimes of The Future (2022) : Crimes against remotely being cinematic (work in progress ?)
Preamble :
This is about as cinematic as the whole film gets - and as much daylight
(From the opening shot, with Sotiris Sozos (as Brecken))
In preparing what follows for publication (e.g. checking such things as release-dates), it has become apparent that IMDb has been told to call Crimes of The Future (2022) Drama / Horror / Sci-Fi. (It obediently calls The Killing of A Sacred Deer (2017) Drama / Horror / Mystery.)
In fact, it is an indigestible, plasticized stew of (in chronological order*) such elements as :
* Doctor Who (1963 – 1989) [Especially The Troughton / Pertwee / Baker I years]
* Delicatessen (1991)
* Shadows and Fog (1991)
* Crash (1996) [Cronenberg's own, far superior film]
* Kinetta (2005)
* Raw (2016)
* The Killing of A Sacred Deer (2017)
* Pain and Glory (Dolor y gloria) (2019)
* The French Dispatch (2021)
Four Theses (Review points proper)
(1) Only restrained by someone's recent Tweet** that one cannot justifiably comment on a film, if one walked out, it can now be said that, at 15-20 mins of 107, the impulse to leave Crimes of the Future then should have been taken.
(2) Without the names Viggo Mortensen, Léa Seydoux, Kristen Stewart, etc., Crimes would be indistinguishable from an undistinguished film-festival submission, whose 'screener' one would keep pausing to shout incredulous injunctions or obscenity (as if one's dutifully tortured watch were the real drama ?).
(3) A film that is over-reliant on speech - rather than juxtaposition of scenes or narrative-jumps - as exposition, and (inter alia) shabby interiors*** in low light-levels against which to set Lanthimos-like conversations.
(4) It helpfully used up a free ticket at The Arts Picturehouse.
Courtesy of Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart (as The Eurythmics), there is, now, a synopsis [Eurythmics, Annie Lennox, Dave Stewart - Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) (Official Video)], to which #UCFF links here !
More to come... ?
Afterword :
End-notes :
* Titles with underscoring will, in due course, have links to #UCFF reviews - the film-references are not necessarily to films rated well.
** Obviously, as it was in the last week, not this Tweet, but it will do... :
*** As of, if not in, the derelict buildings in Athens that we see in establishing shots. (Occasionally, we are en plain air)
Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
