What if you could accompany your loved ones until death and beyond? Down to the bare bone six feet under, which can be monitored 24 hours a day? David Cronenberg (Crimes of the Future) positions this idea at the center of his work new science fiction film The Shrouds, which will be screened in competition at the Cannes International Film Festival this year. The Shrouds was initially intended to be a Netflix series, which is evident in the film starring Vincent Cassel and Diane Kruger, for better or for worse.
Netflix wanted The Shrouds – and still rejected it
David Cronenberg has already presented two films since 2022 with Crimes of the Future and now The Shrouds. Such a pace would have been difficult to imagine a few years ago. After Maps to the Stars from 2014, with each passing year without a new film, the question mark grew: Has the director of The Fly and eXistenZ ended his career? In 2019, when no new Cronenberg had yet appeared on the screen, the Canadian explained the break to the Globe and Mail like this:
I really thought I was done making films. I got bored. I thought I was going to write another novel, but then I got interested in the whole Netflix thing and the idea of a streaming series.
It was the time when Netflix hired big names like Martin Scorsese, Nicolas Winding Refn and Jane Campion. Cronenberg was supposed to be one of them, but things turned out differently:
To my surprise, I flew to LA to pitch an idea to Netflix, which they liked so much that they greenlit two episodes I had written. But then they decided not to do it. […] That got me thinking again that maybe I’m not finished with it yet.
Cronenberg did not reveal any details about the content at the time, but today we know: Streaming series that was never filmed, it was The Shrouds. He even revealed to Variety that the film essentially ends before the second episode begins.
SBS Productions
Vincent Cassel and Diane Kruger in The Shrouds
It’s a tragedy that someone of Cronenberg’s status couldn’t get his project into a streamer. In current Hollywood business, the copy has more value than the original. A whole series is being produced about the making of The Godfather, but no one dares to bring Francis Ford Coppola’s new film to the cinema in the USA. Instead of giving Cronenberg money for a new project, the Dead Ringers reboot would be commissioned. But what exactly is the internationally financed The Shrouds to which we owe Cronenberg’s renewed filmmaking?
More from Cannes:
The sci-fi film features Diane Kruger in 3 roles
Cronenberg developed the idea after the death of his wife Carolyn in 2017. In the film version, Vincent Cassel plays businessman Karsh, who initially introduces himself as follows on a blind date:
In a restaurant that he owns. This restaurant is located in a cemetery. This cemetery is lined with gravestones with displays. On them, with the help of high-tech shrouds, you can see the watching the rotting remains of his lover. And if that wasn’t enough, Karsh explains that he would love to climb down into the grave of his late wife Becca (Diane Kruger) and lie next to her.
The whole thing looks a lot more amusing than it sounds, but Karsh’s natural sadness forms the painful thread in a film that then gets lost in conspiracy theories and techno-babble. Karsh sees himself and his company GraveTech as a target of either the Chinese surveillance state, environmental activists and his nerdy brother-in-law (Guy Pearce), who was married to Becca’s paranoid twin sister (also Diane Kruger). Inglourious Basterds star Kruger In her third role, a creepy AI assistant who poses as an animated koala bear speaks.
Read the last sentence again.
It is much, which is told in The Shrouds and by “told” I mean tell. The majority of the film consists of Vincent Cassel exchanging boring conversations about some plot detail with a display, one of the various Diane Krugers or other co-stars. This could be explained by Cronenberg’s fascination with the fusion of people and technology, which obviously has particular significance for Karsh’s method of mourning. After all, the film deals with how he replaces the real connection to his beloved woman with bits and bytes.
SBS Productions
The Shrouds
Despite all the rationalization of the artistic decisions, I still found myself in the Best cast NCIS episode of all time again. And then again in a deeply sad drama about the attempt to control the loss – and thus, in a broader sense, to hold on to the deceased person (and their body). In many places, The Shrouds feels like an info dump that would be accepted in a pilot episode but not in a film in competition at Cannes.
In just a few but really powerful minutes of film, you look directly into the shock waves of loss. A sex scene in which the conflicting desires of two mourners merge is heard the most exciting thing Cronenberg has made in a long time. Most of the time, however, there are stories piled upon stories that could explain Becca’s death, but which leave you cold. Since these stories become tiring over time due to their monotonous narration, The Shrouds turns into a frustrating viewing experience. The few really good minutes still left me grateful that Cronenberg is making films again.
The Shrouds has not yet been released in German cinemas.