Cronenberg's "Shrouds": a twilight work and a reflection on mourning and death 2.0
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Diane Kruger and Vincent Cassel in David Cronenberg's "Shrouds." PYRAMIDE DISTRIBUTION
Review Drama by David Cronenberg, with Vincent Cassel, Diane Kruger, Guy Pearce (Canada, 2h00). In theaters April 30 ★★★★☆
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A few years ago, David Cronenberg was tempted to retire, affected by the death of his wife (in 2017) and the pangs of age – he is now 82 years old. Although lively and alert, "The Shrouds" presents itself as a resolutely twilight object, draped in mourning and death, these two infinities which here serve as a playful testing ground, an echo chamber where a myriad of motifs dear to the author are aggregated – double, hybridization, virality, tragedy of the inevitability of time. It is the story of a videographer, Karsh (Vincent Cassel, rather convincing as a salt-and-pepper double of the Canadian master), an inconsolable widower and a shrewd businessman (in the evil sense of the term). His affliction inspires a revolutionary concept: a "filming" shroud which shows, through an interposed screen, the dereliction of the deceased loved one. Enough to stay connected to his wife (Diane Kruger, beautiful and sad) beyond her biological death and open a new and coveted market, a 2.0 cemetery model conceived as a relaxation space where the forces of the spirit are taken over by digital technology and swallowed up by globalized capitalism – a mysterious billionaire is toying with the idea of buying her funeral start-up.
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After a brilliant presentation of his discovery to a suitor who is, to say the least, disconcerted (a fabulous opening, in pure Cronenberg style, crackling with irony and grief), the practical implementation suffers a few hiccups. Like the Kafkaesque setbacks of the hero of "The Fly," the creation escapes the control of its initiator. Mourning is no longer a matter of morbid contemplation and autarkic rumination; it interacts with the course of the world, hijacks Karsh's memories as well as his initiatives, sharpens his paranoia and that of those around him. A kind of decomposition of the soul, after that of the body, that Cronenberg stages between cruelty, triviality, and languor, like a barely distorted reflection of our era, this tangle of projections, rumors, and post-truth where the virtual and the material embrace.
