eXistenZ (1999)

Simply Perfect

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

This is a movie which perfectly captures your state of mind as you slowly awake from a dream. What you thought were true realities while you were asleep become increasingly fraudulent the more you process them logically and consciousness rears its head, paradoxically there still remains a sense of legitimacy to the situations and ideas that had manifested themselves in your mind so abrasively as you slept. On one plain plane the players, like chronic somnambulists, know they are in a game yet their bodies and minds continue to act and think in ways that they cannot predict or control. They give in to the confusion because it offers a break from conscious thinking and inhibitions and opens up previously unknown avenues of imagination. What at first seems incoherent in this movie becomes more and more believable as images, characters, phrases, etc repeat themselves in fragments that you slowly begin to recognize subconsciously. Everything starts to make vague sense yet you won't be able to put your umbilical cord on exactly what it is the dream (or your own unconscious mind) is trying to tell you. The story operates in the same way that the plot of a dream does,gliding from one situation to another seemingly at random, you cannot remember exactly where you came from, how long you'd been there, or why you'd been there but you gain a sense of reverence for the places you've been and the people you've met because they all make strange cosmic sense to you, they embody all of your deepest fears and desires so honestly that you cannot help but be grateful to them. Forget any coherent message or intelligent thought when you experience this movie because they are unnecessary to dream with.For maximum harmonic understanding, ingest a handful of dubiously obtained Armenian sleeping pills, hang upside down from the ceiling of your lair whilst double fisting two bloated goat stomachs full of your great grandmother's long-frozen/now-thawed bReaSt miLk. Play the movie backwards with the sound going forwards on a loop for as long as it takes to you know what with you know who in you know where you tyrant demon basterd….

The film has so many plot twists, that I stopped caring about the characters 20 mins in. The writers have no concept of what a game is and apparently did no research into gaming community. The confusion which was probably intentional, does not help the constant plot twists and double crossing. While an argument could be made that the confusion, plot twists and complete lack of logic was attributable to the minds of the killers, this does not excuse an over poorly written film. It is possible to tell a story like this without loosing your audiences interest or empathy for the characters. The final 5 mins of the film, which is the only part of the film to occur outside the actual game, does make sense now. Given that the deranged killers are out of the decision making process, this makes sense, to the movies credit, but many will see the final twist coming.The plot is a mess, the characters all over the place and visuals, while intensionally disturbing are not amazing but simply adequate. That said, elements of the film are very well done. The fact that I came away hating the protagonists is understandable given that in reality they were the antagonists. The disjointed plot, and constant illogical decisions of the characters, as well as the constant backstabbing are all explainable by the psyche's of the killers. Despite this eXistenZ is probably a film you will only watch once, which is a pity because it is also the type of film that reveals more of itself with more viewings.

Antenna Research is testing a new game system eXistenZ created by great game designer Allegra Geller (Jennifer Jason Leigh). An assassin shoots her with an undetectable organic gun. She is injured and marketing trainee Ted Pikul (Jude Law) takes her away from the danger. Her pod contains the only copy of eXistenZ and she has to test it. Ted is forced to get a bio-port installed by underground installer Gas (Willem Dafoe). However he turns out to be out for the contract on her life. It's a long road where reality is questionable and the world is full of danger.It's a lot of ooey gooey organic effects and perverse sexuality. I'm not sure if Cronenberg is actually making a point but it seems to be warning a merging and confusion between reality and game. It's a lot of weird stuff going on. It's not scary or even disgusting. It's just oddly fascinating.

The ending left me with goosebumps. I had a strong feeling of déjà vu and felt like the movie had actually stopped to ask me a question directly. It was like an electrical jolt that left me sitting there reflecting on the ideas still floating around in my mind. A nice feeling, exactly what you want from a sci-fi thriller.Much of the movie revolves around the simple question of how do you know if this is reality you're in right now? Maybe you're in a game. You could even be in a game within a game. How can you ever tell for sure? By itself, that question can be a bit dull. A pointless unanswerable question, only asked for the sake of sounding clever. But in the right context, it has a much deeper relevance and can be unsettling.Do violent video games make us violent? Or do we create and play violent video games because we are violent? Or can they be a healthy outlet for us with things we would never do in real life? Can we separate reality and games?In eXistenZ, the characters play games. Games that look and feel extremely real. Jude Law's character is new to them, like us. And naturally, he is a bit uncomfortable at first. It is unnerving how real the game is. I personally find many technologies far too invasive or "user-friendly" (dumbed down so I don't know what's really going on behind the scenes) for my liking. I prefer transparency and control. So I would probably hate a video-game that was too real. I like to see the pixels, I like to be able to pause and get a drink. If something's going to look real, it may as well be real.Anyway, violence occurs in the games of eXistenZ. I guess it may as well. I mean, if you're in a virtual world, why not do all the things you can't do in real life? Explore weird personal sexual and violent fantasies, or just try things out. What does it feel like to kill someone? For me, this is just a bottomless pit that I have no interest in going down. You have to stay connected to reality. You can always imagine things, think about stuff, read books or watch movies. I love video games but as a form of art. A story told with words, music, images and gameplay. Like a movie but interactive which makes them more dream-like, flexible and personal. I want to always be actively thinking and reacting, not in a trance.Back to the story. What happens when you wake up from the game? How do you know if you've really woken up? You might still be in the game, it could be tricking you. You might start doing some daily chores or work and then come out of the game later realising that all that time and energy you had spent was wasted on a virtual world.Or later you might be in the real world but fall into game habits. Eventually you might think you're actually in the game. What if something bad or dangerous happens and you ignore it because you think you're playing? Or you casually do something violent because you think there are no consequences? Or you gradually find you *need* a regular fix of violence and one day you can't login to the game?Allegra (Jennifer Jason Leigh) herself seems somewhat addicted to the game she has created. She compares it to the boredom of real life. She often seems drowsy, like her real body is getting weak from spending too much time playing (lying down) rather than living. It may sound trite but if you find real life boring, it's probably you that is boring.The ending is very interesting and ironic. It's funny to reflect on the way the movie itself is like a virtual reality game. The actors are the players and the writer/director is the game designer. It also raises the issue of protest and censorship. Does censoring something really achieve anything? Can you ban something just because you think it's bad for people? Or is that simply presumptuous destruction, is it hypocritical? If a game's popular, does that make it valuable, something that should be left alone? The issue is alive and well in 2015: GTA5 was recently taken off certain shelves in Australia which provoked a (semi-sarcastic) petition for Target to change its name.eXistenZ has an effective and fairly unique tone. Most of the movie is in close-ups, we can't escape the characters or their situations. We're in their minds the whole time. The music is suitably moody, a bit ambiguous but generally ominous. Like slow, slushy oceans of thoughts and unexplored worlds. Cronenberg once again shows off a strange imagination - there's a cute little dragon thing, gross food, a creepy futuristic organic gun and ports at the base of people's spines (similar to The Matrix). The acting is good, we feel what the characters feel but often have no idea of their motivations. We start suspecting everyone.There are interesting similarities to Inception, The Matrix and even The Wizard of Oz. Inception is much more ambitious and emotionally richer. The Matrix is more of an action film with some simple philosophical ideas that aren't really explored properly (they conveniently never question the reality of the world outside The Matrix). eXistenZ is more claustrophobic. We're stuck in the minds of two characters as they play a strange dream-like game which we don't know the rules or purpose of (like in real life). By the end, I was subtly blown away. It's both simpler and more complex than what I had anticipated.