{"id":52218,"date":"2025-04-22T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-22T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lepetitseptieme.ca\/?p=52218"},"modified":"2025-04-22T08:52:46","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T12:52:46","slug":"the-shrouds-nearer-my-god-to-thee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lepetitseptieme.ca\/en\/2025\/04\/22\/the-shrouds-nearer-my-god-to-thee\/","title":{"rendered":"The Shrouds \u2013 Nearer My God to Thee"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

 “Grief is rotting your teeth.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Karsh (Vincent Cassel), an innovative businessman and grieving widower, builds a device to connect with the dead inside a burial shroud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beating Around the Bush<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It all began on a beautiful, warm, and sunny morning\u2014the kind that seems like a good omen, dressed in fresh sprouts and birdsong (Snow White would\u2019ve been thrilled). Ready to head out, I took my first breath of spring air (it doesn\u2019t smell at all like those spray can air fresheners) and realized at that exact moment that the city, newly awakened from its slumber, was gaining strength to return to its frantic pace, as the bus, early, passed right in front of me. Still, I managed to catch said moderately convenient transport after a two-minute run (not bad, really); naturally, my card didn\u2019t work. The driver let me on anyway\u2014it was the express line, so no time to lose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Up to that point, I told myself it couldn\u2019t be that bad; after all, these were just minor inconveniences. I was still going to see The Shrouds<\/em>\u2014David Cronenberg\u2019s latest, a director we Canadians proudly claim as our own, known for genre classics like The Fly<\/em> or, more personally, Videodrome<\/em>; and at ten in the morning, it was bound to pack a punch. While I tried not to overthink what I was about to watch, I noticed my fellow urban travellers doing their best to remain calm through an impromptu detour. I realized this detour was actually taking me closer to my destination, so I gathered my courage and approached the mighty driver at the helm to ask if he could, if possible, drop me off at a convenient sidewalk, explaining my situation. To my dismay, I had to watch my stop slowly slip away in the sluggish traffic, no chance of getting off. Still, it was a beautiful day for walking\u2014not really something to complain about for more than two minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
Karsh (Vincent Cassel) et Soo-Min (Sandrine Holt)<\/em> | (c) Gravetech Productions Inc-SBS Productions<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, I arrived at the venue on time for the screening and early enough to grab a coffee just above the Cin\u00e9ma du Parc, where I met a charming gentleman who didn\u2019t give his name but was praising the verve and spirit of one of his former university students\u2014now apparently part of LPS as I am. Before I could say I wished I\u2019d had professors like that too, the conversation drifted toward the neutrality of information, for example, regarding the Israeli\u2013Palestinian conflict… I tried to chime in, and an older woman stood up to lecture me, cutting me out of the conversation quite tactlessly with an air of smug condescension. Whether I\u2019m a poor child or not, madam, that\u2019s not an argument\u2014it\u2019s ageism and sophistry. At that moment, I couldn\u2019t quite explain why, but I was really looking forward to diving back into Cronenberg\u2019s world and losing my bearings for about a hundred minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Honor or Privilege?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Shrouds<\/em> begins with an abstract background\u2014a fine green mist on black, reminiscent of old Windows screensavers (whose original purpose is now defunct, leaving only aesthetics and nostalgia\u2014poetic, really). Then, in a dirt tomb, a man\u2014Vincent Cassel as Karsh\u2014watches his wife, played by Diane Kruger, apparently dead, through a small hole. Her body lies there, partly dissected, slowly decomposing. So far, aside from the overly luxurious setting (I mean, as in expensive), there\u2019s nothing in the film\u2014practically speaking. I don\u2019t want to be discouraged so quickly, the movie\u2019s just begun, but let me point out that Scanners<\/em>\u2014among others\u2014started off with a bit more spunk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
Karsh et Becca (Diane Kruger)<\/em> | (c) Gravetech Productions Inc-SBS Productions<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not unfamiliar with Hegelian notions of image plasticity\u2014philosophical perspectives that I feel are alluded to in this film (maybe in all films, really, haha). There\u2019s also a lot of mirror and screen reflexivity (no screensavers this time), which opens the door to deep creativity without ever stepping through it. The effects are mostly (if not entirely) CGI. We\u2019re shown a self-driving Tesla model (have you ever played Mario Kart<\/em>? Might be time, with the new one coming to Switch 2) shamelessly flaunted like it\u2019s \u201csick,\u201d as the \u201cyouths\u201d would say. AI avatars manage your schedule (by the way, electronic secretaries for everyone\u2014that\u2019s<\/em> science fiction), Chinese and Russian hackers, conspiracy theorists against doctors and their experiments (apparently, conspiracy theorists are also aphrodisiacs now). I didn\u2019t feel disturbed even once\u2014except maybe by the fact that the entire film reminded me of the final scene of The Substance<\/em>, when the creature still thinks it can pass as human while decomposing before our eyes (or was it The Fly<\/em>? I can\u2019t remember\u2014they\u2019re so alike).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s like Cronenberg asked Google or GPT (not Grandpa Turtle) what the \u201cCronenberg style\u201d was to write his script. On paper, The Shrouds<\/em> is indeed a film of that genre, but through the transformation of lost original matter into the projected, solidified plasticity of the screen image, it doesn\u2019t feel like it. Not to me, anyway. Is he telling us that the blind and the maimed are horrible to look at? Is he clumsily questioning that part of the self that makes us who we are and whether it belongs to any physical organ? The main character is a rich, boring and lonely billionaire who thinks he\u2019s great (that\u2019s what the audience is supposed to think). Storytelling is about letting your audience see bits of themselves in parts of the story. Are there too many interior designers per cubic centimeter compared to the number of livable homes? The phrase that screams \u201cI\u2019m not young\u201d the most is: \u201cI know technology.\u201d I know technology too\u2014I\u2019ve got a lighter in my pocket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To Depart with Dignity<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Everything in its time, whether past or future, has its moment in the present. When you\u2019re young, you want to be older; when you\u2019re old, you try to be younger. Ironic, right? I\u2019m convinced his latest film is constructed in the same way as those other cinematic classics\u2014with great personal inspiration. Before even questioning whether it\u2019s good or bad, one must try<\/em> (Art is not the Force, sorry Yoda). That\u2019s sort of why we watch a Cronenberg or a Shyamalan\u2014we want to see Life<\/em> through the unique gaze of an artist, but maybe not see his<\/em> unique life through ours. In The Shrouds<\/em>, it\u2019s hard not to notice the intimate, visceral layer from the filmmaker serving as the film\u2019s backdrop (or screensaver). Any decent critic could easily use this as a psychoanalytic foundation to better understand David Cronenberg as a human being. Still, that doesn\u2019t stop this latest project from the Canadian icon from failing to take us beyond what we already know or have seen before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
(c) Gravetech Productions Inc-SBS Productions<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Maybe this proves that some generations have had enough airtime. Not in the sense of \u201clet\u2019s push the old folks out,\u201d but more that it\u2019s always more graceful to pass the torch to a successor than to awkwardly fumble the ball between colleagues and drop it. Where Cronenberg once had fire and provocation, it’s now calm and convenient. eXistenZ<\/em> or A History of Violence<\/em> were the kinds of films made by pioneers of cinematic evolution\u2014works that disturbed or surprised with their boldness, yet always felt like they were forging paths into unknown or rarely trodden lands. There are plenty of great ideas out there\u2014in Canada and elsewhere\u2014so how about giving Gen Y a chance for once (oh, but I know, Gen Z is already more hip and \u201cin the know\u201d). I know I\u2019m preaching to the choir and that I sound frustrated when I talk about this, but sometimes it really feels like it\u2019s just as hard for me to mature into being heard in this field as it is to not get carded at Couche-Tard, even for a lighter. Am I not allowed to wonder when\u2014or if ever\u2014I\u2019ll finally be taken seriously? (For the record, I\u2019ve been of legal age for almost as long as it takes to become one.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In conclusion, I know patience and impulsivity are things I need to work on. Still, I\u2019m aware of it, and I work on it every day. Let me tell you, I\u2019m not the only one working on patience. That\u2019s probably why anger is a plague. It\u2019s likely the most exacerbated emotion under the current conditions we all live in\u2014and the most dismissed. Oh sure, men cry now, but no one gets angry anymore. In fact, no one gets angry\u2026 and that\u2019s worrying. Where is that transformative energy in our pivotal era? Anger is a powerful energy that deconstructs\u2014but also builds. That\u2019s<\/em> what\u2019s constructive, and it helps my patience. Instead of letting bodies in perfect condition rot, letting sharp, vivifying minds burn themselves out, and letting uniqueness drown in a sea of toxic unity and homogenized uniformity\u2014wouldn\u2019t it be better, dear readers, to ask ourselves why we\u2019re so keen on preserving death instead of life?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the way, you can still go see the film if you don\u2019t believe me. But you know what was really scary that morning before the screening of The Shrouds<\/em>? I paid without looking\u2014thanks to that impolite lady\u2019s interruption\u2014and before walking in, I glanced at the damn receipt I didn\u2019t ask for. My coffee cost exactly $6.66. Let\u2019s just say the bill was more laxative than the drink itself. I\u2019ll leave you now with a melody that serves as a leitmotif for the botched days we let sink into the night, with dignity and respect (Nearer my God to thee<\/em><\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trailer <\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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