RogerBW's Blog

Antiviral 07 September 2014

2012, dir. Brandon Cronenberg, Caleb Landry Jones: IMDb / allmovie

In a world where the cult of celebrity involves taking on their diseases… pretty much everything that can go wrong with such a setup does.

Brandon Cronenberg is of course the son of David, and this is his first full-length film; his father's influence is very clear not only in the overall subject matter, but in such things as the medical closeups, the odd shot angles, the juxtaposition of diseased and sexy images, the hallucinations, the body horror in general, the oppressive soundtrack, and the black and white (and blue-tinted) set dressing. If you'd told me this film was made by David Cronenberg, I'd have had no trouble believing you.

Which is not a terrible thing: I quite enjoy many of the films of David Cronenberg. But it's a little disappointing that Brandon hasn't found a more distinctive voice; and it feels like an early Cronenberg, before he'd really got the hang of it.

I at least never really cared about Syd March, the protagonist. In Videodrome we may not have liked Max Renn but we did at least take some interest in what happened to him. Syd's dying, and is being exploited by everyone he meets? Meh, so what? I think it's a matter of contrasts: we never see Syd being nice to anyone, or having a pleasant time, so we have no reason to feel sad when bad things happen to him because that's just the baseline of his life.

There are plenty of evocative scenes as Syd gradually spirals down towards his inevitable Bad End (the only real question is what form that bad end will take), but somehow I was never quite grabbed. This isn't the sort of film you watch to find out what happens; it's a film you watch to produce in yourself the conceptual and emotional state that the filmmaker desired. Which happened a bit, to me, but not as much as I'd have liked.

Yes, it's a very effective send-up of the cult of celebrity and the conclusions to which it can lead, but it's much more about saying "hey, I've got some neat ideas" than working out ant of the implications of those ideas. Aggressive cutting would have helped, or maybe just a better writer to help with working things out, but even this imperfect piece shows definite promise. Eh, Brandon's young; he'll learn. Long live the new flesh.

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech aviation base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2022 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1