eXistenZ

I, like so many viewers, was really pissed when I found out that Bobby was merely having a dream. You remember Dallas, that nighttime soap from the 70s/80s? Is there anything lazier than for a writer to concoct then pull the rug out from everything you've invested hours in watching and say, eh, it didn't really happen? Viewer outcry was in overdrive when Dallas pulled that trick. Far fewer people saw the unfortunate Emilio Estevez vehicle from '86, WISDOM, but it had a similiarly insulting conclusion. It's as if the creators don't have the convictions to allow their characters some development, or, oh terrors, harm. The "it's only a dream" is like an escape chute for the writer, letting him or her off the hook lest we hold them accountable.

What of the unique television program St. Elsewhere? The final episode revealed that everything that came before was merely the busy imagination of a child staring into a snowglobe.

On the other hand, when we watch TV shows and movies, we're doing just that. Gazing into a made-up landscape. Why should we get annoyed when we find that it was all a dream, or someone's musing, or a game?

I've been there, and I'm sure you have. Speaking of games, David Fincher's THE GAME had a finale so inane and insulting I was practically spitting blood in disgust. Who do these filmmakers think they are? Do they view us with such contempt that they feel they can invert all that is coherent and logical in the name of art? Artistic license?

Well, of course they can! You did read my review of INCEPTION, right? But not all reality twisters are created equal, or armed with the same agenda. But it's only a movie, every time.

Today we'll look back at director David Cronenberg's wacky 1999 eXistenZ, a cinematic tease that continually plays with the idea as to whether what we see is really happening or merely a simulation, part of some elaborate game. We're never quite sure, but that is the point here. But, is it worth your time to be toyed with?

Jennifer Jason Leigh, one of my favorite actresses, plays Allegra Geller, mistress extraordinaire game designer. She's lauded as the most brilliant mind in her field, in the world, even. She works for a corporation called Antenna Research. While showcasing her latest creation, "eXistenZ" at a seminar, a would-be assailant tries to bump her off with a weird looking gun. Does he work for the rival gaming co., Cortical Systematics? She survives the attack and before she can blink, she's on the run with Antenna employee Pikul (Jude Law). As they flee, we learn how these elaborate games are played, and what sorts of ports and drives they fit into.

Allegra's "bio-port" or pod is a cavity in the spine into which the game is inserted, via an umbilical cord. In this future society, virtual reality is achieved without separate external hardware. If you're familiar with Cronenberg's previous work, this scenario sounds like something that fits comfortably with the sort of grotesqueries seen in THE BROOD, VIDEODROME, SCANNERS, and CRASH, an audacious NC-17 picture that I'm sure I'll get around to reviewing. Just thinking about that one makes me want to race for a shower, but...

Allegra discovers at some point that the eXistenZ program has been damaged; the only copy is within her and when her "umbycord" is injured, the game is compromised. She convinces Pikul to get his own bodily bio-port so she can inspect the damage. In order to do this, both will be part of the designer's game. This requires surgery performed at a gas station run by a guy named, appropriately enough, Gas (Willem Defoe). Pikul is reluctant for fear of becoming paralyzed by the procedure.

But are Allegra and Pikul already part of the game? Journeys through Chinese restaurants and video game stores only add to the riddle. Wait, Pikul is constructing a gun out of the bones of his disgusting meal; a gun that looks similiar to the one Allegra saw the business end of at the film's opening! We're never sure what is "reality" and what is "eXistenZ", right to the end. Familiar territory abounds: double agents, double crosses, the questioning of sanity. This also being a Cronenberg movie there will be discussion and examination of medical pathology, icky special effects, and a sexual undercurrent to everything (shades of his 1975 SHIVERS). You can observe the way human anatomy is used here, often as a device of some sort, and perhaps draw some conclusions about fetishism that may or may not echo CRASH.

The nasty element of computer viruses plays into it, too. At various times, Allegra and Pikul are victims of infected bodily ports and consequently, their perceptions shift accordingly. How and why did they end up back at that ski lodge? Is the game ridden with viruses? Or is it just their (players) scrambled minds?

eXistenZ came out just after the much higher profile THE MATRIX, another film, as you might recall, that wondered if life as we perceive it wasn't just an illusion. Around the same time, other films like DARK CITY and THE THIRTEENTH FLOOR played with intriguing ideas of time shifts and alternate dimesions. Cronenberg's flick did not find a big audience, though a sizable cult may exist. While most of his films are distinguishable from anything else produced, this one remains a blah curiosity. The messages are not particularly profound, or anything Aldous Huxley didn't foretell years before. Or any of the great 20th century sci-fi writers.

Or, perhaps the creators wonder who is playing "god" in this world. Do we create our own world, or exist in one that was created? To me, it seems like Cronenberg is always examining this idea: what or who created what or was it evolved? Are drugs (the pharamaceutical kind or otherwise) responsible for the reality? Since our brains naturally produce various neurotransmitters which filter our reality, what is the gateway for what? Someone harvested the drugs, of course, but they become deities themselves. What's your drug of choice? Does it define you? Is it pleasure? Technology itself? This idea of a supreme being? What incepted (aha!) our perceptions? This movie marginally develops these ideas.

Still, one being their own game console is a fascinating notion. It's just a shame that one's own imagination is no longer enough in the world of eXistenZ. Or, perhaps it is the catalyst that drives further exploration. Finding one's way to the light, the upper level, the reality (INCEPTION, again!), is the trick. Ask any gamer who's spent hours and days obssesed with the next level about that. I've met some who seem to still be lost in the vortex. But who's to say I'm not some simulation in their game? I'm pinching myself right now, but I don't know....Maybe we are living in some snowglobe, or matrix, or dream, or game, or...