8 minute read
Arts & Culture
from 27 July 2022
by Milan Lukes
David Cronenberg’s past futures
Cinematheque presents two films by the Canadian body horror legend
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Alex Braun, staff
Fresh off his new feature film Crimes of the Future, which premiered earlier this year at Cannes to a six-minute standing ovation, David Cronenberg has been having a renaissance of relevance as of late.
The 79-year-old Toronto native has spent much of his career presenting grotesque techno-dystopias in which the mental and physical human forms are distorted by our technological surroundings.
As our own reality becomes more and more of a techno-dystopia, Cronenberg’s films offer an exhilarating and disturbing perspective on the intersection between biology and technology.
Programming coordinator for the Cinematheque, Olivia Norquay attributes Cronenberg’s return to body horror in his new film Crimes of the Future, as “an amalgam of his filmography in a way.”
“He revisits familiar elements of body horror and sexual politics that we see in Crash, Videodrome, Dead Ringers and The Brood,” Norquay said in an email interview.
Cinematheque is playing two of Cronenberg’s earlier films that deal with these ever-relevant ideas — Cronenberg’s original 1970 version of Crimes of the Future, and the 1983 cult classic Videodrome.
The ’70s version of Crimes of the Future, a film that shares a title with Cronenberg’s latest despite being largely unrelated, is one of the director’s first features. Norquay describes the two films as being thematically similar and complimentary.
“While Crimes of the Future (2022) deals with art and the body,” Norquay said, “the original short film from 1970 examines the body and humanity in relation to the environment and what lengths those in power will take to ensure their own survival.”
The film follows Adrian Tripod, director of the dermatological centre known as the House of Skin — the centre having formerly been directed by Antoine Rouge, Tripod’s mentor and the namesake of a horrible venereal disease that has killed off most of the world’s sexually mature women.
The movie is a difficult watch. Filmed in silence and only soundtracked by Tripod’s unreliable and stiffly delivered voiceover, we follow Tripod as he wanders around the University of Toronto’s myriad of modernist buildings, licking himself, studying people’s feet, finding amateur inventors of body implants and eventually joining up with a group of pedophiles who are looking to artificially induce puberty in young girls.
The result is a Kafkaesque fever dream that shows us a vision of an imagined near future that feels completely out of time. In fact, it feels shocking that it was filmed in 1970, especially in its restored form.
Videodrome shows a much more confident Cronenberg presenting a future that is no less disturbing and confusing.
Once again utilizing the simultaneously sleek and grimy buildings of Toronto, the film follows Max Renn, a sleazy TV programmer who stumbles upon Videodrome, a feed of violent pornographic footage that entrances him. As it turns out, watching too much Videodrome creates a brain tumour in the viewer that causes their reality to become warped to the point where they start to live Videodrome and transcend the need for their old body.
Visually, Videodrome is a real treat — nocturnal, lit by the enticing neon glow of the TV and deliciously disgusting in its horror elements.
Over time its plot has only become more relevant as our lives are being lived out more and more virtually. Not that Videodrome is a didactic screed against watching too much television.
In a lot of Cronenberg’s work there is an interesting dichotomy of horror and empowerment, mainly, of being freed from the shackles of humanity. Videodrome is a perfect example of this, as Renn finds a sort of new life in his new flesh.
Norquay sees this metatextual examination of entertainment and mass media as one of the film’s great strengths.
“Videodrome is a really fascinating film because it’s challenging its own medium and film audiences,” Norquay said.
“The medium is the message,” she continued. “And suggest[s] that access to graphic images have changed our brains and how we function in the world.”
Both films are fascinating and are wildly entertaining glimpses into the mind of a unique genius, adding context and thematic background to his twisted obsessions.
Cinematheque is showing Crimes of the Future from Jul. 27 through 31and Videodrome from Jul. 27 through Aug. 3.
arts@themanitoban.com
/ provided Cinematheque images /
’Toban tracks: so, what did we miss?
A roundup of new Manitoban and Canadian releases from our publication break
Alex Braun, staff
We’re back! It’s been nearly four months since our last issue and music releases kept happening, even when we weren’t there to report them. To quickly shout out all of the great local and Canadian music that we weren’t able to cover, we have put together a little playlist of the highlights.
Lots of great local releases are featured, like “i think it’s u” from Rainy Day Ritual’s excellent new album sparrow, or meadows’ impossibly catchy indiepop banger, “caught.” Shoegaze and dream-pop heavy hitters Living Hour have returned with the beautiful track “No Body” from their upcoming album, and Matlock’s own The Secret Beach has had a steady stream of great singles from his upcoming project including the lovely “Miss You,” which bounces along jollily while Micah Erenberg tosses off tongue-in-cheek lyrics about the emptiness of endless nights of partying.
Beyond local music, we also missed a few high-profile Canadian releases like Drake’s house-influenced excursion Honestly, Nevermind, Arcade Fire’s big comeback on WE and the long-awaited return of Alvvays on its dense new single “Pharmacist.” There are also a few slightly lower profile releases represented here, like the woozy “tilted crowd” from the Toronto-based lo-fi indie project PACKS’ new WOAH EP, or “Degree” from the debut album by Cola, an offshoot of the recently defunct band Ought. Also of note is the great Nunavut songwriter, Terry Uyarak, whose dreamy “Aniqsaatuinnarit II’’ is a real highlight. Additionally, Daniel Romano’s Outfit is coming off a prolific couple of years with “Genuine Light (La Luna Excerpt).” The track is just a little sample from the Outfit’s upcoming rock opera and motion picture, La Luna.
Check out this sampler and dig deeper into the tracks that you like! And thank your lucky stars that the Manitoban is back to keep you posted about these kinds of things.
Genuine Light (La Luna Excerpt) — Daniel Romano, La Luna
Call Me Upset — Booter
Massive — Drake, Honestly, Nevermind
caught — meadows, joyful
Crucified — Sister Ray, Communion
tilted crowd — PACKS, WOAH
i think it’s u — Rainy Day Ritual, sparrow
Pharmacist — Alvvays
No Body — Living Hour
But They Respect My Tactics — KEN Mode
Degree — Cola, Deep in View
staff Dallin Chicoine / graphic /
Aniqsaatuinnarit II — Terry Uyarak, ATIILU!
Miss You — The Secret Beach
Unconditional I (Lookout Kid) — Arcade Fire, WE
Wrong Side of the Sky — C.Ross, Skull Creator
Formentera — Metric, Formentera
arts@themanitoban.com
’Toban turntable
JayWood, ‘Slingshot’
Alex Braun, staff
3/5 Stars
JayWood, the project of Winnipeg’s Jeremy HaywoodSmith, went big on his new album Slingshot.
The album highlights the record’s lyrical meditations on heavy topics like social justice, racial identity and religion.
Haywood-Smith talks about drawing specific inspiration from Kendrick Lamar, one of the most acclaimed artists of his generation known for making knotty, highly conceptual albums. Musically, though, HaywoodSmith is pulling from all over, recalling psych-rock, indie-pop, hip-hop, neosoul, funk and rock all at once.
Predominantly, Slingshot is a chill album. Chill to a troubling level, like when you’ve sunbathed a little too long and the world starts to spin. The production is so dense and the song structures are so convoluted that the songs are difficult to digest fully — there’s simply too much going on.
It seems like JayWood instead wants the listener to take in the record as mood music. Everything is buried in a sea of reverb, and the vocals are largely incomprehensible behind walls of guitar and synth pads. This leaves the listener to focus on the groove and space out as the myriad of other elements swirl in the background.
A few songs stand out from the pack. Opener “God Is A Reptile” has a refreshing aggression and bite to it, smartly saving its introduction of the album’s default mode of sensory overload until its climax. “Just Sayin’” has great clarity, with a light funky groove and bright backing vocals from Ami Cheon. And “All Night Long” is another nice one, coming at JayWood’s signature indie-groove sound through summery ’10s-era chillwave, a genre that I am always happy to hear nods toward.
The back half of the album becomes frustrating, especially in the stretch from “Kitchen Floor” to “Tulips,” where the tempos drag and the song lengths extend past the five minute mark.
“Kitchen Floor” seems like a lyrically-dense and interesting track, but the production is so washed-out that it is impossible to understand what is being said. Meanwhile “Shine” is supposed to be a protest song — the video juxtaposes footage of HaywoodSmith with footage of 2020 Black Lives Matter protests — but it is so chill musically that it sounds like more of a shoulder shrug than a protest.
JayWood’s Slingshot doesn’t quite follow through on its conceptual ambitions, but its infectious grooves and hazy summer vibes still make it a worthwhile listen. Hopefully this is just the start for Haywood-Smith as he becomes a more confident songwriter.
provided Pitch Perfect PR / image /
