This week a new film by David Cronenberg is released in UK cinemas; a cinematic event from one of the world's most renowned auteurs. Armed with a back-catalogue of notorious films his works are steadfast revealings of the human condition, unmissable unique films despite being hard pills to swallow at the best of times. Working from Don DeLillo's novel of the same name, Cosmopolis stars Robert Pattinson as a young billionaire travelling across Manhattan. His mission? a haircut, but the story looks to explore the state of modern civilisation and its next evolutionary step - transitions are Cronenberg's calling card and here he looks to reinvent Pattinson over night.
Last years' A Dangerous Method boasted some fine performances and costumes but only slightly rippled the waters, it was a well handled drama but Cronenberg's presence felt interchangeable. With his new film Cosmopolis we can only hope the director has rekindled some of his magic, the ability to show rather than tell. In his career he's shown audiences some of the most unforgettable sights; the chilling swimming pool orgy in Shivers (1975), James Woods pulling a gun out of his own stomach in Videodrome (1983), and the most unconventional of sex scenes involving Rossana Arquette's open wound in Crash (1996), these to name but a few. In A Dangerous Method - a fine drama though it may be - we were at the dawn of psychoanalysis with the difficult relationship that spawned it. As Freud and Jung wrestled over their thesis on Man's relationship with repression we were bombarded with lengthy conversations and letter writing aided by voice-over, not the cinematic tools you'd expect from Cronenberg despite the story harbouring his obsession over sex and repression.
