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Things catch the eye in David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds, whether you like it or not. Such is the nature of the director credited with inventing the genre known as body horror. Yet the most unsettling sight may be the hair of star Vincent Cassel, swept up into a grey pompadour. Anyone familiar with the real-life Cronenberg will note the resemblance to the filmmaker. Indeed, the actor’s whole look is so close to his director, it comes as no surprise that Cronenberg has talked of The Shrouds as autobiographical. It is quite a thought during the film.
On screen at least, Cassel’s character is called Karsh: an urbane type with a background in “industrial video” who is now pioneering new forms of image-making. Based in Toronto, he owns a cemetery, GraveTech. That timeless business has become future-facing. Each of the headstones has a screen — with the bodies buried in a high-tech shroud, fitted with 8K resolution cameras. Thus the bereaved may still forever see their loved ones. For some people, it helps. One is Karsh himself, who has lost his wife, Becca, to cancer, and was his own first client.
If the set-up creeps you out, it is surely intended to. Yet something else is also at work emotionally. When Cronenberg talks of The Shrouds as personal, he has been specific. His wife, Carolyn Zeifman, died in 2017. The movie, then, is all about loss. But if you expected that to mean solemnity, the director’s brand endures. Much of the film is driest comedy. The grieving process is rife with kink.
A detective story of sorts takes shape. GraveTech is plagued by industrial espionage, or perhaps eco terrorism. There are rogue doctors, and troubling sex. That Karsh has a flirty AI assistant feels apt. If it were asked to make a David Cronenberg film about grief, it might come up with something not unlike The Shrouds.
The thriller-ish notes have a vagueness you might find playful or exasperating. Dialogue can be mannered. Still. We shouldn’t be blasé about a filmmaker this fascinated with ideas — the real stuff of life. It feels bittersweet to see Cronenberg now confront the ultimate body horror: our final loss of control over our own. Even then, he keeps asking questions.
★★★☆☆
In UK cinemas from July 4
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