I've been watching David Cronenberg's new film "Crimes of the Future", and I'm deeply impressed, It's an alluring and disturbing film, and I will be acquiring my own DVD of it.
There's a moment in the film where Kristen Stewart's character says that "surgery is the New Sex". That's a lovely line, and as good as "long live the New Flesh!" from Cronenberg's "Videodrome". That of course is the basic element of the film-- that body modification is the New Sex, and its results are as powerful and unsettling as anything sexual can be.
I'll note that Viggo Mortenson's character responds to Ms.Stewart at one point by saying that she might be right, but that in any case he was never very good at the Old Sex.
I once read a horror thriller where the heroine has a nipple cut off during sex and I remember sitting there with the book feeling disturbed, appalled, and yet thrilled at the scene. Yes, fine, that's a tribute to the author's skill, and it means that the author did succeed at the 1990s game of transgression. But creating something alluring and disturbing at the same time is a dangerous move. "Crimes of the Future" left me with that same uncanny feeling. The surgical scenes are graphic, oddly distanced, powerful, and highly erotic. There's a moment where Lea Seydoux drops to her knees not to give head to Viggo Mortenson, but to slide her tongue into and along the open surgical cut he has across his stomach. It's a stunning scene, and her face is as beatific as any blowjob scene in a porn film. I don't know what to make of the scene, and I don't know how to analyze my own response to the scene and to the film as a whole.
Odd thing. I know what my response to Mlle. Seydoux is, of course. In the film, she's had her hair cut to a short pixie cut, and she (like Ms. Stewart) dresses in tailored slacks and tops-- a very alluring garconne look. She's naked a fair bit in the film-- maybe more so than in "The French Dispatch" --and while Google tells me that her bra size is a 32B, she has very large ("Oreo-sized") areolae and nipples. Large areolae have always been a particular favourite of mine, but I've never known how to just say that, or (again) how to analyze that.
I've stayed away here from discussing my personal preferences. In 2022, and if you're a straight, cis, white, over-thirty male, discussing your personal sexual tastes and interests simply isn't done. No cis-het male in 2022 could write a sex blog or do a sex podcast where his own personal experiences are part of the conversation.
If I say anything, I'll note that my tastes run to the tall and slender-- lithe, lanky, lissome, long-legged. Always long-legged. And underwear-averse. Yes, sharp hipbones and collarbones. Yes, a dark tan-- something that Gulf Coast co-eds still favor. I do not like the current fashion for tiny waists and big hips. I do not like the idea of Big Butts. I do like short haircuts-- see Mlle. Seydoux in "Crimes of the Future"; see Ms. Stewart in several earlier films. Big areolae, yes. But that's as much as I'll say. I'm sure I can be attacked just for having preferences at all.
"Crimes of the Future" is stunning. David Cronenberg's body horror films have always been stunning and stunningly erotic, all the way back to "They Came from Within", down through "Naked Lunch" and "ExistenZ". I've just had the local library get me a copy of Cronenberg's novel "Consumed". I read it once long ago, but after seeing "Crimes of the Future", I need to read it again. I need to see if Mr. Cronenberg did make cannibalism and underground surgery sexualized.
I do note that Ms. Stewart is described in the film as "sexy...in a bureaucratic way". There's very little of her flesh on view-- her tailored blouses are buttoned to the neck, and she's clearly wearing a bra. But she has a very thrilling look-- messy hair, a look of starved obsession and compelling desire. That look of inner compulsion is very sexy.
I do need someone with whom I can discuss the film, and all the lovely Young Companions I've relied on seem to have vanished over the past few years. If you're reading this from out over the aether, do comment. I'd like to hear what my Imaginary Reader-- a young, over-educated comparative lit major with concealed dreams of transgression --has to say about David Cronenberg.
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