Synopsis
Play it. Live it. Kill for it.
A game designer on the run from assassins must play her latest virtual reality creation with a marketing trainee to determine if the game has been damaged.
1999 Directed by David Cronenberg
A game designer on the run from assassins must play her latest virtual reality creation with a marketing trainee to determine if the game has been damaged.
Dimension Films Alliance Atlantis Natural Nylon Entertainment Serendipity Point Films Téléfilm Canada The Movie Network Union Générale Cinématographique
eXistenZ - Du bist das Spiel, Екзистенц, אקזיסטנז, eXistenZ - Az élet játék, イグジステンズ, ეგზისტენცია, 엑시스텐즈, Экзистенция, Постојање, Varoluş, Екзистенція, Trò Chơi Quái Ác, 感官游戏, X接觸:來自異世界
Monsters, aliens, sci-fi and the apocalypse Horror, the undead and monster classics future, sci-fi, technology, action or technological earth, sci-fi, space, spaceship or mankind horror, creepy, eerie, blood or gothic sci-fi, aliens, space, spaceship or earth death, profound, symbolism, philosophical or vision Show All…
"I'm very worried about my body."
No truer line spoken in a Cronenberg script.
Maybe my favorite Cronenberg now - layers and layers of "spaces" overlapped until the distinction between the virtual and the real can no longer be distinguished. This is constructed so meticulously - placing characters within a virtual world, governed by virtual laws - but this also depicts the virtual-nature of our basic standards of living: you wake up, you eat, you go to work, you have lunch, you go home, you have dinner, etc. In-between, everything becomes a game: alliances, relationships, sex, even eating food. By the end, we have no clue whether we are seeing a "game" or "reality." But it doesn't matter - for Cronenberg, they're one and the same. Masterpiece.
knew this was gonna be a wild ride when they brought out the Playstation Pussy in the first 5 minutes
jennifer jason leigh crying a single tear over a nasty cronenberg umbilical cord gamecube is more convincing than some actor’s best performances
75
What's vital about eXistenZ is that David Cronenberg doesn't relate the absurdity of the cyberpunk gamer premise to our present day reality. He acknowledges that what he's depicting is currently happening in some form. There's no reason for him to make a statement when the philosophical questions already exist. Ideas of what we say or do, and whether we really have autonomy in those actions, is a central driving force in eXistenZ, as is the layering of space, moving from 'reality' to 'reality' with no concrete understanding of what's actually real. That unreality has become our own existence, with no barriers between spaces that were originally designed as separate entities. Our lives, from the most mundane activities to our…
It’s hard to distinguish between the video game world and the real world because the “real” worlds in Cronenberg’s movies often feel sparse and alienating and sketchily-detailed and full of characters who act like they were programmed by an algorithm that hasn’t quite reached perfection. Cronenberg is the best Toronto filmmaker because he sees Toronto not as the World Class City that Telefilm hacks are incentivized to celebrate but rather as the sort of vague, nonspecific, soulless and slightly sinister everycity that it is.
I wonder what Cronenberg would think about how I play Skyrim. He'd probably consider the cold alien truth of my digital flesh as I run around trying to jump over city guards. He would glean uncomfortable truths about human holes as I go into stealth mode to avoid the NPC I accidentally adopted.
"But it's a game everybody's already playing."
Lot of eyerollers like that in here, but even though it feels kind of repetitive for Cronenberg, I like all the stuff about shifting virtual identities and artificial worlds superseding and/or merging with biological ones. The bigger problem is this seems like a shitty boring game.