Review of eXistenZ (1999) by Everett J — 11 Feb 2008

[i]eXistenZ.

[/i]dir. David Cronenberg.

In [i]eXistenZ, [/i]David Cronenberg creates a seductive, exquisitely strange universe that differs from normative reality only circumstantially.

The film follows the adventures of Allegra Gellar (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and Ted Pikul (Jude Law). She's a renowned game designer who has created eXistenZ, which she touts as an entirely new gaming system. He is a marketing intern who has never played a single game in his life. Fate throws them together as the film opens. A gathering of gamers have been assembled and have been given the opportunity to play Allegra's game before it hits the market. When Allegra is uploading the game into everyone through their biopods (the game is literally powered by each player's body through a port in their back), an assassin with a gun manufactured from the bones of amphibious mutants attacks her. This grinds the event into chaos and Allegra and Pikul are thrown together. Eventually they get to playing the game and step into a parallel universe populated with extravagent characters and very odd scenarios.

The world just outside the world most of us know is offputting and discomforting. In many ways it resembles what we are familiar with but there is a psychic urgency that propels every action toward necessary conclusions. The most significant difference between the two worlds is the existence of a soul, psyche, creative spirit. The game world lacks the spark of life which propels our world forward despite all the obstacles that are compiled to block our path. Allegra and Pikul find themselves in a world governed by forces that exist inside their minds and therefore can be altered. Each step is a test and leads the characters directly on a path that they are determining for themselves. Once inside the game, however, what we call actual reality begins to seem entirely unreal. The film questions naturally the pretensions we hold regarding what we experience through our senses. It allows for basic questions about existence to be put forth; questions that have been asked for thousands of years and are no closer to being answered.

Jason-Leigh conveys a pulsating, raw and terrifying sexuality throughout this film. From her initial scenes wearing full-on leather pants through her forays into ExistenZ, she exudes a seductive pull that is exasperating and unavoidable. Her body speaks directly about the erotic possibilities of this new kind of game. Jude Law is quite good playing the nave. He's almost childlike in both his demeanor and his physical presentation. Law plays Pikul as an innocent to the ways of the gaming world and through him the viewer is able to enter into it casually, if not enthusiastically. Ian Holm plays Kiri Vinokur, a doctor who fixes Allegra's gaming system. He's possessed by a certain energy that comes out in his gestures and mannerisms. As Yevgeny Nourish, Don McKellar is deadpan and ghoulish. He looks like he just stepped off of the set of one of The Damned's videos circa 1985.

The film in many ways is a wake-up call for those who have promoted virtual reality in a decidedly utopian light. It suggests that there are many more hidden urges at play than most people will own up to and that these will determine any investigations into the virtual world that might be undertaken. It's fascinating that the bioports connect directly to the game. The tactile configuration creates a dialog between human and machine that science has also been promising us for decades. This is not an easy film to sit through. It is one of the rare films that effects one physically in such a way that is exceedingly discomforting.

Overall, this film explores many intriguing avenues of thought regard the future of play. The possibilities of true virtual reality are investigated with both great humor and seriousness. Cronenberg illuminates the scope of the imagination and shows how it necessarily shapes all existing realities. The film has an almost sickly tone that is unnerving and disconcerting. It's a cold world without emotion, without love or hate. It's quite possibly only a mirror to the existence that most people shuffle through day by day.