Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: David Cronenberg
Starring: Vincent Cassell, Diane Kruger, Guy Pearce, Sandrine Holt
David Cronenberg has long explored our fears around the inescapable fact that our bodies are slowly decaying and will inevitably betray us at some point. With The Shrouds, he displays a new fascination for what happens to our bodies in death. Inspired by his experience of watching his late wife Carolyn pass from cancer, it's a deeply personal film, perhaps his most personal work. After decades of forcing us to look at lesions and abrasions, Cronenberg is exposing his own open wounds here, albeit of the psychological and emotional rather than physical kind.
As he has often done throughout his career, Cronenberg has devised a concept here that is simultaneously unsettling but all too credible as something we may well see become a reality in the near future. Vincent Cassell plays Karsh, a businessman who lost his own wife, Becca (Diane Kruger), to cancer four years ago. Since then he has developed "GraveTech," a process that sees the deceased wrapped in a shroud equipped with tiny cameras like those used to capture bullet time cinematography. Using an app (there's always an app), the deceased's loved ones can observe the corpse decaying in real time.
Most of us will share the horrified reaction of the woman Karsh takes on a blind date to his unique cemetery in an early scene, but Cassell's earnest performance convinces us that it's genuinely helping him to grieve. Similarly, some may view The Shrouds as a distasteful way for Cronenberg to honour his late wife, but if you're familiar with his work it's no surprise that he finds himself fascinated with the idea that a once living human is now a slowly decaying bundle of bones. There's no right way to grieve. The other day I saw someone on social media use AI to animate a still photo of their late mother. To me the idea of creating a false memory is disturbing (the Calvinist in me doesn't even like to keep photos of passed loved ones around), but who am I to judge? Whatever works.
From this unique idea, Cronenberg weaves an increasingly complex conspiracy thriller. Seven of the tombs at GraveTech are damaged, including Becca's, by unknown vandals. Karsh has noticed strange growths on Becca's bone tissue, which his go-to tech guy Maury (Guy Pearce) reveals to be minute tracking devices. Various suspects line up. Could it be the Russians using GraveTech as a way of spying? Or the Chinese company Karsh collaborated with to realise his unique vision? Or perhaps an eco-terrorist group who have expressed disapproval at the radioactive material used in the shrouds?
Cronenberg uses the template of a paranoid conspiracy thriller as an allegory for grief and the many questions we ask when we lose someone. Did we love them enough? Did we express that love? Could we have prevented their disease? Why were they chosen? Each new clue Karsh uncovers only serves to raise more questions, to deepen the conspiracy. By the end of the movie several suspects are in place, and we might even begin to suspect Karsh himself.
There's an element of Vertigo and Cronenberg's own Dead Ringers when Karsh begins sleeping with Becca's younger sister Terry (also Kruger), who now looks almost identical to his late wife (as with Kim Novak's dual characters, Becca is a glamorous blonde while Terry is a more earthly brunette). Karsh also beds Soo-Min (Sandrine Holt), the blind daughter of a wealthy magnate who wishes to establish a GraveTech cemetery in Budapest. That Soo-Min uses a guide dog and Terry is a professional dog groomer ties the two women together in a curious way. Karsh has an AI avatar personal assistant named Hunny on his phone; it speaks and looks like a cartoon version of his late wife, but unlike Soo-Min's service dog, it repeatedly betrays his wishes. Cronenberg seems to be suggesting we should place our trust in the living, whether human or animal, rather than the artificial.
When Becca appears in flashbacks, Cronenberg gives us some of the most explicit images of the ravages of cancer ever depicted on screen. We see a scar like that on the side of Frankenstein's monster's head in place of Becca's left breast. A loving embrace by Karsh results in Becca cracking a brittle rib, a sound effect as disturbing as any I've ever heard. But despite the body horrors within, these memories are a little too idealised to be true representations of Karsh and Becca's relationship. Perhaps this is why Karsh feels the need to be able to watch his wife's rotting body, to balance the beatific image of her in his head with the brutal reality of decay. To attempt to figure out the motivations of both Karsh and Cronenberg is a folly. We can't know why some people choose to grieve in their chosen manner. All that matters is that the dead are honoured, and remembered.
The Shrouds is in UK/ROI cinemas from July 4th.
