THE SHROUDS Reviewed by GREG KING
Director: David Cronenberg
Stars: Vincent Cassel, Diane Kruger, Guy Pearce, Sandrine Holt, Jennifer Dale, Eric Weinthal, IngvarSigurdsson, Steve Switzman, Elizabeth Saunders.
Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg is well known for his films that often mix sci-fi with horror tropes, some confronting splatter effects (who can forget the exploding heads in Scanners), kinky sex, and gory body horror. While many of those elements are present in his latest film, The Shrouds is more of a meditation on death, loss and mortality. The film is deeply personal film for Cronenberg and it has a vaguely autobiographical element to it as it was conceived in the wake of the death of Cronenberg’s wife seven years ago.
Karsh Relikh (played in stoic fashion by French actor Vincent Cassel, from Irreversible, etc) is mourning the death of his beloved wife Rebecca (Diane Kruger, from Inglorious Basterds, etc) who died from cancer four years earlier. Before her death she had undergone a number of surgeries that had taken away parts of her body leaving her in a weakened state. Her bones were brittle and easily broken.
In an effort to remain close to her, Relikh has created a high-tech state of the art cemetery, known as Grave Tech. He has devised a shroud that encircles the body. The shroud also contains sensors that screen the decomposition of the body, which can be viewed via screens on the headstones via an app, allowing the family to view the decaying body in real time. This is a rather creepy and disturbing concept, but seems perfectly suited to the mind of a filmmaker like Cronenberg who does love to push boundaries.
Karsh plans to expand his concept overseas. But as he plans to open new high tech cemeteries in other countries he finds that several gravestones have been vandalised. His own data has been hacked. Who is responsible? To find out the answers he turns to his former brother-in-law Maury (Guy Pearce, recently seen in The Brutalist, etc), a tech nerd. Maury was once married to Rebecca’s twin sister Terry (also played by Kruger), who owns a dog grooming business. But there is also a growing attraction between Karsh, who is still obsessed with his former wife and experiences erotic visions of her, and Terry. In searching for answers Karsh uncovers a conspiracy that involves Icelandic ecoterrorists and Russian mobsters.
Further complicating matters, Karsh is planning to open a new site in Hungary, which leads him to Soo-min Szabo (Sandrine Holt, from Terminator Genisys, etc), the blind wife of a dying Hungarian, who is the CEO of a technology corporation.
It is not a coincidence that Cassel here vaguely resembles the filmmaker, which further blurs the line between fiction and the filmmaker’s own identity. Cassel also spends most of the film looking glum, and his dour style lends an eerie and melancholy tone to the material. Kruger plays three roles here – Rebecca, her twin sister Terry, and also pops up as Hunny, Karsh’s computer avatar who slowly begins to take control of his technology and clearly has her own agends. Kruger is quite alluring and has a warm presence. Pearce is perfectly cast as the dishevelled and twitchy Maury whose loyalties are unclear.
The film has been nicely shot by Douglas Koch (who also shot Cronenberg’s2022 drama Crimes Of The Future, etc). There is also strong production design from regular collaborator Carol Spier that gives the interior locations, including Karsh’s apartment, a vaguely futuristic look and feel and a sterile feel.
The Shrouds is not one of Cronenberg’s better films. There is something cold and inert about this film that kept me at a distance. The film is also heavily dialogue driven. It also explores the dangers of AI, a popular theme in a lot of films today. The Shrouds is shaped by a complex and complicated plot that is not always easy to follow or unpack. It is also very European in its abrupt ending that leaves audiences pondering what happens next. I found this ambiguity unsatisfying. And the subject matter will not be to everyone’s taste.
★★☆
