Here's the first of two reviews from Shawn Francis taking a look at two upcoming blu-ray releases, the first is for David Cronenberg's 1999 sci-fi thriller eXistenZ. Shawn takes a look at the U.S blu-ray which is being released by Echo Bridge. Check out Shawn's Review after the jump.
Written by Shawn Francis
What
is “reality”?
As I
thought about this review, I decided to go through my DVD collection
and see how many movies I had that asks that question. The first that
immediately came to mind, even before I started looking, was one I
already knew I had—DREAMSCAPE (1984).
If
memory serves, I believe, this is the first movie I ever saw where
that concept is broached. Here it’s through dreams and a new
technology that allows our main characters to affect each other’s
dreamscapes, to a point where the consequences of “one reality”
affects the other, namely, die in your dreams and you die in real
life.
Another
film that uses our dreaming world as as a way to show that the very
word, “reality,” is best used in quotes, is the Christopher
Nolan’s actioner, INCEPTION (2010). Like DREAMSCAPE,
it, too, is about a technology that allows a person to enter into
another’s dream and affect it. Both of these films, more so with
Nolan’s movie, also manages to blur the fine line between what we
believe to be “reality” and what we believe to be our “dreams.”
In
TOTAL RECALL (1990) a spy decides to alter his own
“reality” by erasing his douchebag personality and replace it
with an everyman one, so he can infiltrate a band of elusive freedom
fighters on Mars. Again, it’s a piece of futuristic technology that
does the “reality blurring jig,” altering memories so you can be
all that you never were, or all that you wish you could be.
DARK
CITY (1998) and THEY LIVE (1988) goes an entirely
different route with why “reality” ain’t like it used to be.
The causes in both of these movies are aliens who have so deftly
infiltrated and taken us over that we never saw it coming, nor were
even aware it happened. Why is that? Because they have manipulated
our perception of “reality” into believing all is as it always
was, or, more precisely, all that we are used to thinking it ever
was.
THE
MATRIX (1999) falls into this category, too, but the purveyors of
our altered “reality” in this movie are artificial intelligences
that have run amok and evolved to the point where humans have become
they’re power sources, and like CITY and LIVE, what we think is
“real” is nothing more than a meticulously maintained façade to
hide a more terrible, and insanity inducing, “reality.”
You
could say BLADE RUNNER (1984) has a kernel of “What Is
Reality?” lying within it, as well. I’m thinking about the scene
where Dekkard realizes Rachel is a replicant, but one who’s
memories are the product of her creator’s life, thus an “altered
reality.”
Up
to now all these films I’ve been talking about fall nicely into the
science fiction category, but the horror genre has also explored this
concept. John Carpenter’s underrated IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS
(1995) ejects the aliens and reality-changing tech for
Lovecraftian beings that have their foot so far into our doorway that
they can literally alter the very fabric of what we see and believe,
using a “fictionally created emissary” by the name of John Trent
to herald their coming.
In
my book, the best “What Is Reality?” movies are those that even
manage to screw with the viewer’s perception of events. By the end
of MADNESS, we’re not really sure if Trent was real. He could have
been, but somewhere along the way the interdimensional beings may
have decided to reimagine his “reality” into being the product of
famed horror author, Sutter Cane’s “mind.” And how do we know
Cane was even real to begin with either?
As I
just pointed out, the conclusion to any good reality bending movie
should also leave you asking, “So, what fuck was really going
on?!”, and no one does that better than famed director, David
Cronenberg with his two movies, VIDEODROME (1982) and eXistenZ
(1999).
Both
of these films concern themselves with run amok media being the cause
of our altered lives. In VIDEODROME we’re back to technology
being the weapon, one that’s loaded into a television and shot into
our minds via the “videodrome signal.” Tumors are then created
and then the brain either “hallucinates” us into another form of
reality, or, like the beings in Carpenter’s film, can literally
affect “reality” as we know it. Since the events of this movie
are seen through the eyes of one man who’s been afflicted with the
signal, by the end, we’re never really sure if all that we’ve
seen is the hallucinatory product of a tumored brain or an actual
form of altered existence?
Which
finally brings me the subject of this review—eXistenZ!
Allegra
Geller (Jennifer Jason Leigh) has created a new kind of gaming system
called, eXistenZ, where the user’s mind actually goes into
the game so completely that their perception of it becomes as
real as their perception of “real life.” There are people,
though, who see this new “reality” as something detrimental to
what has already been set down, and because of that Geller must be
killed. Enter Ted Pikul (Jude Law), a PR nerd/”protector” who’s
pulled along for the ride. Like VIDEODROME it’s not just the
mind, but biology that’s victimized and warped, and by the end,
like INCEPTION, we learn “reality” has always been a
subjective experience and it may have infinitely more layers to it
than we could have ever imagined.
So,
is it live, or is it Memorex?
Dimension
put this out on DVD back in the day with only a trailer for extras,
then somewhere along the way Canada came out with their own special
edition of it that incorporated a different transfer, several
commentaries and a couple of featuettes. Now, Echo Bridge has put out
a solo blu-ray with a 1080p transfer that’s pretty damn good
looking. However, for those that have the Canadian special edition,
you will have to keep that one as well, for none of the commentaries
are ported over and the deeper blacks that grace that version
are not present in the blu-ray. That’s not to say this isn’t a
winner. It is. Detail and color or crystal, but I fear I’m
comparing apples and oranges with these two. If you looking for a
moodier looking movie due to those deep black levels, watch the
Canadian DVD, if you want something lighter but with more detail and
clarity watch Echo Bridge’s solo blu-ray.
There
are three interviews included as extras, all of them taken at the
time the movie was being released, and in production: Jude Law
(14:38), Willem Dafoe (6:56) and one with the late, James Isaac, who
acted as Special Effects Supervisor (27: 40). It’s this last
interview I found the most interesting. I had no idea Isaac was an FX
guy. I only knew him as the director of THE HORROR SHOW (1989) and
PIG HUNT (2007). It’s clear a little ways, when he answers
his walkie-talkie, that this interview is being conducted during
the filming of the movie. He’s standing over a table covered with
the FX props they used in it and answering questions from a woman off
camera. Highlight was watching him explain how he made the Gristle
Gun. And a 1998 James Isaac looks an awful lot like a 1984 Jeffery
Combs, I have to add in closing.
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