eXistenZ Review

Review of eXistenz (1999) by screenqueeen: 👍 3.5/5

HOOPTOBER 7.0 DAY 33 2 DAYS AFTER THE END

This begins as a truly intriguing world-building approach for Cronenberg but he stops himself from getting too far and veers back towards what he does so often, yet so well: focus on the people and their wants, needs and fears. This always manifests itself physically (usually in a deliciously grotesque design extending from the human body) to some extent in Cronenberg's world whether internally or externally, and in EXISTENZ it manages to be both. But in some cases he gets a little too close especially in a purposefully convoluted world crafted first and foremost by him on the outer shell but on subsequent levels truly made by his characters in a similar image.

Some focus is lost on what exists in these worlds and instead follows a simpler thread that is the plot to kill Allegra Geller, which is never questioned but readily accepted. The surrounding logic and building blocks of the game world is just more intriguing than the narrative beats Ted & Allegra stumble through, as jump cut edits are (cleverly) explained away as one of the main features of the game.

What was fascinating about THE MATRIX wasn't necessarily the illusion of free will & the expository war between man and machine but the human resistance that informs an immediate community, something that EXISTENZ doesn't quite have. Showing us close to the end who was in that community with TranCendenZ (or however it's spelled) doesn't give nearly as strong of an impression of the group as a whole, more of like seeing the actors you admire come out and talk about their small role in a film and comment on their performance.

Perhaps the lack of focus on the philosophical device the film is named for is what keeps the characters from fulfillment or a sense of place, even if Jennifer Jason Leigh's Allegra Geller's defined state of authentic being is meant to give Jude Law's Ted Pikul a new orifice to penetrate.