Cinema from the Spectrum

If you’ve watched many of David Cronenberg’s movies since his early days, it might be easy to note a fascination with how human bodies constantly move alongside the technology that they have access to. Not only is this crucial towards how he has redefined body horror films as we know them, but for David Cronenberg it might also seem as if he has a peculiar fascination with what happens to said bodies even after death. Thus it only fits that Cronenberg would describe The Shrouds as being an autobiographical work, given that this film was directly inspired by the death of his wife in 2017, but the manner by which Cronenberg is grieving takes on an unfamiliar form as we’re seeing in The Shrouds.

There’s no subtlety either about all of the autobiographical elements in The Shrouds: Vincent Cassel’s character Karsh is introduced sporting a hairstyle similar to that of Cronenberg’s. Karsh specializes in a very peculiar form of technology that allows families to watch their loved ones decompose; which he feels has only brought himself much closer to his wife Becca (Diane Kruger) following her death. Following the vandalism of Becca’s grave, he finds himself caught in another web of deceit that sends him down a rabbit hole connecting Becca’s twin sister Terry, her ex-husband Maury (Guy Pearce), and Soo-Min (Sandrine Holt), whose husband wishes to open one of Karsh’s own cemeteries in Budapest.

At this stage in his own career, The Shrouds feels like the perfect culmination of David Cronenberg’s own relationship with technology, which is a fittingly complicated one. But given the sort of fascinations that Cronenberg has with what happens with human life after death, it only fits that he has a very morbid connection with what happens when we stick too closely with those whom we love. For Cronenberg, The Shrouds is his own way of grieving the loss of someone he loved very dearly in life, thus his way of coping would involve closely monitoring the decaying body as much as he can because there’s so much technology that might even allow him to maintain such a close eye on his loved ones as their remains turn into treasures for those who are still alive.

So it only fits that in how closely someone like Cronenberg would want to stick with his wife, he might just as well end up getting paranoid and conspiratorial about it. Everyone in The Shrouds almost feels like they are ready to take part in a much bigger scheme, but Karsh is trying his hardest to compartmentalize what’s going on in his life. It may feel like this is where Cronenberg is trying to have fun even with the idea that people can turn the corpses of their loved ones into some kind of commodity, but even Cronenberg is wrestling with the idea of what would happen should it catch on. Can our deceased loved ones truly live in peace if we’re still closely observing the state of their bodies every minute they lay buried in the ground?

It may just as well be enough to see someone get driven insane. The images of Karsh’s dead wife may come back to him in his own dreams, but even as the whole movie approaches a conspiratorial tone, it just so happens that he might even find he’s losing his own grasp on reality. This alone results in what may be some of Cronenberg’s funniest moments that he’s ever captured on screen, because the paranoia runs from start to finish in ways that might only leave yourself without any grasp on what’s happening within this world – even though it might also be a sign that he’s lost within his own worlds too. One can’t blame him either, except it doesn’t always make the slightest bit of sense – which might just as well be the summation for how death affects us in the moment.

The Shrouds is a sad movie, but I think that it’s sad in the sense that David Cronenberg knows he can’t always keep his eyes out for his loved ones. As a love letter though, I think this movie is very decidedly beautiful, because it’s clear we’re watching a movie that comes out from a place of pain. It’s never easy to pinpoint what it feels like, let alone how certain we are about where things can get from that point onward. But much like Cronenberg’s preceding film, Crimes of the Future, you can’t help but feel like The Shrouds is the perfect embodiment of Cronenberg coming to terms with how this relationship he has built with technology has also put himself in a peculiar world away from any sort of reason. You can’t watch The Shrouds without at least feeling sorry for him.

Watch the trailer right here.

All images via Janus Films.

Directed by David Cronenberg
Screenplay by David Cronenberg
Produced by Saïd Ben Saïd, Martin Katz, Anthony Vaccarello
Starring Vincent Cassel, Diane Kruger, Guy Pearce, Sandrine Holt
Premiere Date: May 20, 2024
Running Time: 119 minutes