The Shrouds is Classic Cronenberg @TIFF 2024

Director David Cronenberg has been in the game for nearly five decades and has been a pioneer in opening the doors for the Canadian film industry. It would be challenging for any film festival whether it would be Cannes or the Toronto International Film Festival to not showcase any of his films, especially at this stage in his career where he still makes films at a respectful rate. The Shrouds revisits what makes a classic Cronenberg film. You might ask yourself what makes a Cronenberg film? What are its characteristics and elements? There are many components, but most of his films’ foundation is his actors and actresses.

In The Shrouds, Cronenberg has the prowess of Diane Kruger and the iconic Vincent Cassel who both have appeared in films that fit his bill. Vincent Cassel plays Karsh a technological entrepreneur who has lost his wife, Becca, played by Diane Kruger four years earlier. For him to still be able to connect with her, Karsh invents a burial shroud where his clients can watch their loved ones decompose right in front of their very own eyes. Even right on their smartphones. Karsh is still grieving the death of his wife and throughout many sequences in the film, he feels that he is still with her. Especially during the late hours of the night when he dreams of her. It may feel therapeutic to him but Karsh cannot truly let go of his beloved wife.

One morning he finds that there are vandals who have taken desecrated his wife’s plot and a whole host of others. This proves to be bad timing and not an ideal PR moment as he is about to sell one of his cemeteries to Budapest. Karsh’s inner circle become more involved in this hate crime such as Becca’s lookalike sister Terry also played by Kruger and her ex-husband Maury played by Guy Pearce. Issues and secrets begin to arise from these relationships while Karsh tries to find desperately the culprits of this vandalism. Soo-Min, who is played by Sandrine Holt, is also the dying wife of a Hungarian tycoon who is looking to buy Karsh’s shroud idea and bring it to Budapest.

The premise of this film is classic Cronenberg where it is demented to think that people would want to feel connected and grieve for their loved ones while their body is decomposing. But the way technology has taken hold of us nowadays, there is no question that anything is possible. FERNTV loves how Cronenberg blends all the elements that make this another classic creation. Sex, body horror, technology, decomposition, paranoia, delusions, illusions, anxiety and lack of connection is what makes this film a classic Cronenberg installment. This unique ensemble of Cassel, Kruger and Pierce brings this film to that Cronenberg universe that many actors strive in. Even for Vincent Cassel, he seems to be just playing himself in this movie which makes this film quite touching in a weird sense.

The Shrouds feel like David Cronenberg has gone back to his roots. This film presents the sadness we all feel when we lack true connection with others. As you see with Karsh, he is using technology to connect with his deceased wife to fill that hole that he feels inside. Just like in other Cronenberg’s films such as Crash, The Fly and Videodrome where the use of technology is to connect to another or higher being.

It is almost as if Cronenberg is still warning us about the use of technology and how we think it is connecting humanity but doing the exact opposite. In The Shrouds though, Cronenberg is telling us that technology can never replace the true human spirit. Especially in a world where we are so glued and attached to our phones and technology. If we ever detach from technology, our minds will certainly explode just like in Scanners. Isn’t that ironic?

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A post shared by Fernando Fernandez (@ferntv.ca)