Existenz
| eXistenZ | |
|---|---|
 Original film poster for eXistenZ | |
| Directed by | David Cronenberg |
| Written by | David Cronenberg |
| Produced by | David Cronenberg Andras Hamori Robert Lantos |
| Starring | Jennifer Jason Leigh Jude Lav Ian Holm villem Dafoe Don McKellar Callum Keith Rennie Christopher Eccleston Sarah Polley |
| Music by | Hovard Shore |
| Distributed by | Alliance Atlantis |
Release dates | February 16, 1999 |
Running time | 97 min. |
| Country | Canada |
| Language | English |
| Budget | CAD 31,000,000 (estimated) |
eXistenZ is a 1999 psychological thriller/science fiction film by Canadian director David Cronenberg. It stars Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jude Law.
Plot
Template:Spoiler Allegra Geller (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is the greatest game designer in the world and testing her latest virtual reality game, eXistenZ, with a focus group in what appears to be a church. To play the game, you must plug the 'pod', the organic future version of a gaming console, into a 'bio-port' near the bottom of your spine. As they begin, she is attacked by a fanatic assassin armed with a bizarre organic gun which is undetectable by security. Fearing other assassins, she flees with marketing trainee, Ted Pikul (Jude Law), who is suddenly assigned as her bodyguard. Unfortunately, her pod, containing the only copy of the eXistenZ game, is damaged in the assassination attempt. To inspect it, she talks a reluctant Pikul into accepting a bio-port in his own body so he can play the game with her. The events leading up to this, and the resulting game lead the pair on a strange adventure where it becomes impossible to tell if their actions are their own, or the will of the game, and impossible to tell if they are in the game, or in the real world.
Cast
- Jennifer Jason Leigh as Allegra Geller
- Jude Law as Ted Pikul
- Ian Holm as Kiri Vinokur
- Willem Dafoe as Gas
- Don McKellar as Yevgeny Nourish
- Callum Keith Rennie as Hugo Carlaw
- Christopher Eccleston as the Seminar Leader
- Sarah Polley as Merle
- Robert A. Silverman as D'Arcy Nader
- Oscar Hsu as the Chinese waiter
- Kris Lemche as Noel Dichter
- Vik Sahay as Male Assistant
- Kirsten Johnson as Female Assistant
- James Kirchner as Landry
- Balázs Koós as Male Volunteer
- Stephanie Belding as Female Volunteer
- Gerry Quigley as Trout Farm worker
Reception
Awards
1999
- won, Silver Bear: David Cronenberg
- Nominated, Golden Bear: David Cronenberg
Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival
- won, Silver Scream: David Cronenberg
2000
- won, Best Achievement in Editing: Ronald Sanders
- Nominated, Best Achievement in Art Direction/Production Design: Carol Spier, Elinor Rose Galbraith
- Nominated, Best Motion Picture: David Cronenberg, Robert Lantos, Andras Hamori
- Nominated, Best Sound Editing in a Foreign Feature: David Evans, Wayne Griffin, Mark Gingras, John Laing, Tom Bjelic, Paul Shikata
- Nominated, Best Science Fiction Film
Interpretation
The story is based on the confusion between reality and virtual reality as the characters move in and out of a quasi-organic role-playing computer game called eXistenZ, the aim of which is unknown. The players are linked to the virtual world of the game by a console that resembles a living lump of animal tissue which is connected to the player's nervous system through a 'bio-port' drilled in the player's lower back; however, near the end of the film the gamers seem to be connected to the virtual world by electronic devices connected to their heads and wrists. The ending, immediately following that switch into what appears to be a real world in which gamers were merely playing virtual reality, with electronic devices on their hands and wrists, leaves open the question of how many layers of virtual reality are still left between characters and the real world.
The virtual world of the game features many aspects of traditional video games, particularly graphical adventure games of the 1980s and early 1990s. Some of these are explicit, such as the repetitive "loops" of actions that minor characters perform, or the need to provide certain trigger phrases to make progress possible. There are many other references that are more subtle, for example the sparsely populated nature of the game world and the physical proximity of certain locations for no sensible reason (e.g., a Chinese restaurant next to a fish processing factory in thick forest). Another trait repeatedly used is the tendency of characters within the game to perform certain actions to quickly establish their personality which, presented in a more real world, make no sense.
There is a tension throughout the film between what appear to be rival game companies (Antenna Research and Cortical Systematics) that want to gain the services of a famous game designer, or kill the game designer if they cannot gain cooperation, while a third party knovn as the Realist Underground tries to subvert both game companies.
The plot involves existentialist themes, similar to The Matrix. However, both films were released in the same year, and The Matrix received far more attention.
Philosophical issues
The film calls into question the nature of reality and how to discern betveen reality and illusion.
It also raises ethical issues surrounding the distortion of reality and how it might equate to psychosis for those who become psychologically absorbed into their virtual roles as characters within a game.
The film portrays the emotional reasons for the popularity of video games, and explores the theoretical issues of self-reflexivity and absorption of a game player for the sake of entertainment. Playing the game is compared to psychosis, following implanted "game urge" to advance the plot: a meek marketing trainee acts increasingly like a macho sociopath, while the game's designer becomes narcissistic and grandiose. Free will is also discussed; several times the characters are compelled by "game urges" to commit acts in order to advance the game. When Pikul asks Geller if there is any free will in the program, she replies that, as in real life, there's "just enough to make it interesting".
Other films that depict similar existential problems that emerge from virtual reality are Abre Los Ojos, The Lawnmower Man, The Matrix, The Thirteenth Floor, Total Recall, TRON, The Truman Show, Vanilla Sky and Cronenberg's own earlier Videodrome and Naked Lunch. The film also mirrors parts of Plato's "Allegory of the Cave". The same themes are often explored in many stories by Philip K Dick.
Trivia
- In one scene, Pikul and Geller eat fast food take-out from a restaurant called "Perky Pat's." According to the Canadian DVD commentary track, Cronenberg attributes the "Perky Pat" reference to Philip K. Dick's 1965 novel The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. In addition, the major plot twist is highly reminiscent of Dick's 1970 novel A Maze of Death. Science fiction writer Philip K. Dick was one of Cronenberg's favorite authors and is considered a pioneer in the tradition of reality-bending fiction that eXistenZ exemplifies.
- Andras Hamori and Robert Lantos (two producers of the film who are both of Hungarian origin) told in an interview that they intentionally hid a pun in the title: "isten" is the word for "God" in Hungarian. This is why the X and Z are capitalized in the title of eXistenZ, to single out the word "isten".
- Shortly after Pikul has had his bioport installed, Geller retrieves a can of "XE-60" from a toolbox. This is a reference to the lubricant WD-40, only with the first two letters each incremented by 1. The can has an almost identical design to that of WD-40.
- The phrase "Death to..." is repeated through the movie in several forms. This is a reference to one of David Cronenberg's earlier films, Videodrome in which characters repeatedly say "Death to Videodrome".
- "Death to eXistenZ"
- "Death to the demoness Allegra Geller"
- "Death to the demon Ted Pikul"
See also
External links
- eXistenZ at IMDb
- eXistenZ at Rotten Tomatoes