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New Century of Cinema
DOWSE Guide to the
Movies
by Tony Lee editor of
Pigasus
Press
eXistenZ
95 minutes (15) Alliance Atlantis
Director: David Cronenberg
review by Dawn Andrews
The film opens at a meeting in a dowdy lecture hall, colours very muted, plain chairs
set in a semicircle upon the platform. The scene is set for the idea of virtual
reality games exalted to the level of religion. Allegra Gellar, played by Jennifer
Jason Leigh, is the games guru, a woman who lives for games, and in games. As she
self-consciously steps onto the stage, she invites members of the audience to try out
her new creation - 'eXistenZ'. The game pods held upon the laps of the chosen players
squirm into life when touched. Allegra is at risk from a fanatic, who calls her
'demoness' and accuses her of stealing his reality. She is shot with a strange organic
gun, as are others.
Everyone here seems daunted by reality, and Cronenberg never shows you what
that everyday reality actually is - there are hints, nothing more. The supposed real
world seems dull, as if all life has been drained from it - horrible colours, drab
interiors, except for the two-headed mutant lizard - but this is before we discover
that even the initial set-up is part of a game, and 'Allegra' a shy fan, herself
recruited from the audience! (Or is she?) So this is all a game within a game, you
are never allowed to stop playing for an instant. The pace is beautiful, truly a ride,
and in this way it reminded me strongly of Crash
(there is even a Crash related joke in the form of a game entitled "Hit by a Car
- the Game that Puts You in the Drivers Seat!") As in that film, you never escape the
view of the world propounded by the action and actors, you are as trapped by their
fixations as they are. Drawn in, it is impossible not to identify with them. Allegra's
junkie-like need to play her game pulls at you, until you can't wait for Ted Pikul,
marketing jockey turned bodyguard (a bemused and moody Jude Law), to get his game
port fitted. The scenes with Gas, played to the hilt by Willem Dafoe, are both funny
and uncomfortable, and Ted's fear of being penetrated is played on again and again.
His alternating moods, sympathetic, horrified, hero-worshipping, indignant, are in
sync with the various changes in the game-plan, all motivated by the plea of his
enigmatic charge, "I need to play 'eXistenZ' with someone friendly... are you
friendly?"
The game pod is "basically an animal", as Kiri Vinokur (Ian Holm) states,
Allegra calls it her 'baby'. I have always admired Cronenberg's ability to create
objects that are potent, as in the instruments for the treatment of mutant women in
Dead Ringers, and the customised injury supports in Crash. Fetishistic
yet deadly accurate objects, attuned to whatever obsession is being explored. Here
the obsession is the nature of reality, or the nature of game-playing, if you prefer,
and I was asking the same question at the end, as does the puzzled onlooker in the
final shot - 'are we still in a game?'
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