Culture

It’s always fun to watch films made in the 80s or 90s and see how they thought the world would be by now. Disappointingly, we still don’t have hover cars or pill-based nutrition. What we are getting closer to achieving, however, is virtual reality. Sure, virtual reality the way these films portray it is still out of reach, but devices such as the Oculus Rift (a mechanism worn over your head whilst playing video games) are getting excitingly close.

David Cornenberg’s mind-bending 1999 sci-fi film Existenz depicts a future in which video games have changed from electronic devices to biological ones, and are hooked straight into the human nervous system by way of bio-ports. These organic game pods create games inside the gamer’s mind, distorting reality for those who play and rendering gamers unable to discern the real world from the game world. The story follows the world’s greatest game designer, Allegra Gellar (Jennifer Jason Leigh) as she and wary security guard Ted Pikul (Jude Law) run away from a group of extremists – “The Realists” – who are seeking to destroy all game pods in the hopes of preserving reality.

Like all of Cronenberg’s movies, it takes significant brainpower to decipher. The reward, however, is a film full of significant themes and ideas that make you rethink many of society’s decisions regarding science, technology and entertainment.

Existenz is also filled with some beautifully crafted imagery: the meal Jude Law’s character must eat in order to construct a weapon from the bones ranks alongside the Denethor’s feast in Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King as film’s most visually disgusting depiction of eating ever.

Though the film is now almost 15 years old, and video games and technology have changed remarkably in that time, Cronenberg’s film is still relevant to our times. If you watch it, no doubt you’ll agree that this is not a future we want for ourselves.