'The Shrouds' is a Flawed Yet Unique Insight into Death
The Shrouds may not be perfect, but it's certainly a David Cronenberg film, which is more thoughtful and original compared to most movies. The Shrouds lie in a dark place. It's an incredibly personal film that one would think would be therapeutic to Cronenberg, but according to him in a New York Times interview, it hasn't helped alleviate his grief. After David Cronenberg lost his wife in 2017, he has been living with a sense of sadness. The Shrouds is a reflection of his loss that doesn't get into mushy melodrama, nor does it have a sense of closure. It's a cynical film that is distinctly Cronenberg. It doesn't care about making peace. It's more about never finding it, as life is like that. We live in a constant inner struggle with our conscience that Cronenberg touches upon.
The Shrouds is a mixed bag of emotions as it's an intentionally dry story about a conflicted man. Did Karsh (Vincent Cassel) really love his wife? Did she love him? He must have loved her, or else he wouldn't have gone to the trouble that he does to keep seeing her body. As usual for a Cronenberg film, The Shrouds is extremely horny and messed up. Like Crash (not the crappy one that won the Oscar), the film dissects our fetishes. In Crash, people got off from car accidents. In this film, Karsh can't stop lusting after his wife's mutilated body from an undisclosed form of cancer. The sexuality in this film is bizarre, fetishizing deformities. It all makes sense why that is when you dig deep into the picture. David Cronenberg is known for body horror, but there's more to it than just gore.
The body is sacred. When we're gone, there's no afterlife or consciousness. The idea of organized religion is to comfort us from the fear of death. There's no mention of God, heaven, or hell in the movie. As a self-proclaimed atheist, David Cronenberg worships the body as it's all we have. The body is something that shouldn't be tampered with or abused. Yet that's what happens to bodies in most DC films. The Shrouds, unlike most Cronenberg flicks, doesn't focus on body horror but rather on what happens to our bodies after we've passed and how our friends and family deal with our corpses.
The story is about a man who can't let go of his wife. To help him grieve, Karsh develops a high-tech graveyard featuring screens on the gravestones that connect to a camera that live streams the view from inside the coffin. Karsh can see his deceased wife's rotting corpse not only on the gravestone but also through any personal device. It can all be accessed through the Grave Tech app. Cronenberg is commenting on technology. Since Karsh can't let his wife go, he views her decaying body through an application. Half the movie is Karsh looking at screens. With our constant access to everything, we become addicted to our phones. Nobody can go five minutes without viewing their screens, making us all robots. The use of smart technology keeps Karsh constantly in contact with other people, making him hooked to screens like it's crack. Technology is a double-edged sword. We're addicted to our devices, but it does help keep us connected. So, where do we draw the line with it?
The Shrouds takes place a few years in an accurate version of the near future. The idea of a camera in the grave is morbid, but it's not far from what we might actually get. As technology becomes more advanced, we grow reliant on it. There's a video online where a mother reconnects with her deceased daughter by interacting with a recreation of her viewed via a VR headset. The VR daughter is similar to what Cronenberg is saying. When our loved ones die, we can't help but try to reconnect with them. Either through our dreams or through groundbreaking tech. But does recreating them help us or harm us more? In The Shrouds, it's about how it hurts us. I'm worried the VR daughter won't bring the mother closure, but more grief. She can't hold or kiss her kid. Only talk to her. What if she can't let her virtual daughter go, causing her to disconnect from real life, only living in a virtual world because it's the only place she can cope with her emptiness?
Karsh is addicted to technology. It's unhealthy to look into someone's grave, watching them as they decay. Yet, it brings Karsh peace, making it difficult to question if he went too far in his live-stream grave concept. More so, Karsh has an AI that replicates his wife, Becca (Diane Kruger). It's a cartoon avatar that features Becca's voice. The idea may sound outlandish, but with the rising usage of artificial intelligence, the idea of a talking, conscious avatar isn't too far off.
After Karsh's graveyard has been vandalized, he seeks out possible suspects only to discover a harsh lesson in betrayal. Not only has his graveyard been trashed, but the assailant is also hacking into the graveyard's network. Why this is remains a mystery until the big reveal in the end, which leaves much to be desired. The chain of Grave Tech's graveyards stretches all the way to Budapest, where the Russians may be hacking into Grave Tech's Budapest location to gather information used for Russian military intelligence. How would a camera in people's graves have anything to do with Russian military intelligence? It doesn't make a lot of sense.
Cronenberg attempts to examine various issues that are ultimately left in the air. He touches upon subjects like loss, surveillance, and the dangers of technology. Stylistically, the film is distinctly Cronenberg, as it features no over-the-shoulder shots. The camera is mostly on a flat angle, displaying Karsh primarily in a profile view, depicting his never-ending sense of loneliness. Whenever he talks to someone in the movie, we rarely see both subjects in the same shot. It's just Karsh all alone.
The picture is filled with sex and betrayals that will hold your attention past the muddled plot. I almost feel something for Karsh, but I can't since he does a thing that I think would make Becca turn in her grave. David Cronenberg is reflecting on the loss of his wife in 2017. The final note of the movie's catharsis is filled with more rage than relief. The Shrouds juggles with a lot of themes that can break your attention in its sluggish structure. It may not be Cronenberg's best work, but it still stands as a memorable picture due to its dark bizarreness. You will be exclaiming "WTF" to yourself multiple times, as you should with a David Cronenberg film.
Nothing is used for shock value. There's an intentionality in everything worth paying attention to. Upon multiple viewings, you may catch up on some details you may have missed. The film is stale, like death, although that's the intention. The Shrouds is a two-hour grieving process that leaves its characters feeling unresolved. Why is that? Because, unlike Hollywood endings, there are no happy endings to death. We're left with more questions than answers in life. David Cronenberg still mourns his wife, and it certainly shows in this movie. Was he mad at her, too? Or is it just part of the story where Karsh's finality of his wife ends with anger? There's a noteworthy honesty in this film, which makes me look past its flaws and appreciate the film for its requiem.
