By Drew Dietsch
| Published
David Cronenberg is one of the few filmmakers that taps into something I can’t fully describe about my perspectives on art. That’s why we have artists; they can put into form the formless miasma of ideas circling around in our own brains. Cronenberg has maintained this spellcraft over his storied career, and The Shrouds is no exception to that statement.
But The Shrouds is a movie that’s probably not going to work for most people because it’s the most self-reflective film I’ve seen from Cronenberg’s body of work.
A Life Spent In Death
Cronenberg is known as a horror icon in the film world, so it’s not hard to see The Shrouds main character as an analog for Cronenberg himself. Karsh Relikh (Vincent Cassel, looking as much like Cronenberg himself as possible) has built his life’s work around the concept of a graveyard where people can view the bodies of their loved ones in their coffins. Immediately, this reads as Cronenberg arguing for the value of the horror movie. Karsh sees that there are people who want to stare death in the face, and his GraveTech cemeteries allow them to do that in a safe fashion while also gaining real emotional benefits from such a morbid act.
So, you know, like watching horror movies.
The Muse Is Dying
But soon, his graveyard is vandalized and a paranoid investigation sends Karsh spiraling into a sea of doubt and suspicion. All the while, Karsh is still dealing with the loss of his wife, Becca (Diane Kruger), who appears to him in dreams as her body continues to succumb to amputative surgeries. Becca was the inspiration for GraveTech, so Becca becomes a Muse metaphor for Karsh/Cronenberg as this perfect ideal that inspires his whole world. Seeing Becca get chopped up and her body break apart is Cronenberg exploring his own fears about the Muse dying.
By the end of the movie, Karsh has transplanted the Muse to another person, but she still retains the scars of Becca’s body. It’s an eerie, ominous, and perfectly Cronenbergian display about beauty and ugliness co-existing in the pursuit of art.
Because The Shrouds is all about David Cronenberg’s unique perspective on the world and business of moviemaking.
Paranoia Is Storytelling
The story of The Shrouds is all about Karsh trying to solve the mystery behind the graveyard vandalism and how it might involve any number of international parties like Russia and China. The real story is Cronenberg laying out his own paranoid feelings about the shady business behind the career he has devoted his life to.
But it’s that same paranoia that fuels Karsh’s passion, culminating in a scene that might as well be about the creative satisfaction of “breaking” a story. The chase of the Muse is the pursuit of a creative mystery, and it’s in The Shrouds that Cronenberg reveals how he continues to find the Muse through the paranoia of storytelling.
Does this all lead to a satisfying narrative at face value? Probably not! It’s not hard to see why The Shrouds would roll off most viewers’ backs. As a surface story, it’s fairly mundane when you exclude the expected body horror of Cronenberg. But as a metaphor for David Cronenberg saying, “I’m not done making movies, even if that scares me,” The Shrouds is wrapped in all the things that make him one of our greatest filmmakers.
