At a focus group demonstration of the new virtual reality game, eXistenZ, its creator, Allegra Geller (Jennifer Jason Leigh), is shot by a fanatic “Realist.” Wounded, and with a bounty on her head, she escapes with marketing trainee, Ted Pikul (Jude Law). She fears the shooting damaged her game pod, and the only way to know is to jack in and play the game. But once in the game, how do they know if they are out again, and how can they tell what is real?
The third of 1999’s virtual reality movies (The Matrix and The Thirteenth Floor were the others), eXistenZ is certainly the weirdest. And that brings me to my game (as I learned from eXistenZ that everything is a game): to see if I can use the word “weird” in this review even half the number of times I turned to my wife and said “weird” while watching the film. My wife, instead, said “Ewwww.”
It’s no surprise that this is a weird film; it was directed by weird-meister David Cronenberg who has made a career of examining society through the weirdest (I’m counting variants of “weird”) metaphors he could find or just looking at the weirdest subset of our culture. The grandest example of runaway weirdness was 1996’s Crash; Cronenberg took J.G. Ballard’s weird novel about people with a weird fetish for auto crashes, and turned it into an even weirder film where James Spader (a veteran of weird cinema) attempts to sexually penetrate Rosanna Arquette’s open wound.
In 1991, Cronenberg attempted to put a plot into the near random, weird, drug-induced ramblings of William S. Burroughs, a man who brings extravagance to being weird. The film, Naked Lunch, is fascinating in it’s stylish weirdness, with biomechanical typewriters weirdly issuing commands, but is unengaging. It is 1983’s Videodrome, a weird treatise on the media, reality, and obsession, that is eXistenZ’s progenitor. In it, reality and the video world merge with weird consequences, including gun-flesh combinations and video tapes being inserted into weird, vaginal stomach openings. eXistenZ could be thought of as a remake or a sequel, but with videotapes replaced by videogames. (Nope, I’m not even coming close. Oh well, at least we’ve established that the film is weird.)
The basic story of eXistenZ is surprisingly normal and the ending is obvious by the halfway mark. But the setting is anything but normal. It’s…well…weird. It’s clear early on that everything in the film is within one game or another, so anything can happen. Some things are subtle, like everyone and everything being labeled, while others, like mutated lizards and living game controllers, mock anyone thinking that reality still has meaning.
Jude Law plays the floundering sidekick better than I would have expected. Jennifer Jason Leigh, the princess of edgy cinema, is right on the money, as she so often is, as the exocentric, introverted, carnal game developer. Of course her lust isn’t for human flesh, but for the pulsing game controller. And Willem Dafoe puts in an excellent, twisted performance (see, now I’m trying to not say “weird”) as Gas, the gas station attendant; what else would you expect the guy at the gas station to be named? But this is a Cronenberg film, and even the best actor is swamped under his runaway symbolism. Luckily, it’s damn entertaining symbolism.
This is the most sexual movie I can recall that has no sex in it, at least with any of the normal human parts. Humans are fitted with bioports in their lower backs. Games are accessed by thrusting a fleshy umbycord into the port’s hole. Nothing sexual there. Ted doesn’t have a port, so must have one implanted by bending over as a gleeful Dafoe shoves a large tube into him. Hmmmm. Then, Allegra, wanting to jack in, sprays WD-40 on his port because new ones are often tight. There’s also quite a bit of lubing and fingering of these ports. All of this has a marvelous effect on the viewers libido as its like watching porn without genitals. Remember that word I was using so often before. Do you see why I was?
There’s multiple themes at work here, including the problems with devotion, geek culture, and commercialism (the video game is repeatedly called eXistenz by Antenna). But the blurring of fantasy and reality is the main point. The odd thing is the movie doesn’t make it clear if we are supposed to keep them clearly separated or to understand that there really is no distinction. More than any definite statement, it feels like Cronenberg is just taking out the concepts and playing with them. As Allegra says “You have to play eXistenZ to know why you’re playing.” And then points out that is just like life.
eXistenZ suffers more from the glut of VR films than the others. Remove the VR element from The Matrix and you still have an action film. The Thirteenth Floor would still be a mystery. And the 1990’s Total Recall would still have violence. But take away the VR element from eXistenZ and there’s nothing left. Everything is wrapped up in the concept of uncertain realities, and that is no longer an exciting new idea.
