Stereo (1969) & Crimes of the Future (1970) 65m each.
David Cronenberg once had ambitions to be an "obscure science fiction novelist" prior to his film-making career, and it shows through in these two trial works, which are so similar to each other and yet so distinct from his other films that they cannot help but be discussed together. They are not recommended as general viewing but should be of interest to Cronenberg completists in that they establish the themes of sexuality, mutation and medicine prevalent in most of his subsequent work.
Cronenberg's debut STEREO is the result of his interest in underground film - it may aspire to be experimental but comes across more like a student project. There is no live sound, but a voice-over spoken by different narrators who sound as if they are taking turns reading from the same medical journal. The storyline - if it can be called that - describes an experiment by a research facility in Ontario to accelerate telepathic abilities among a group of young subjects. As a kind of punchline, the film ends inconclusively, with the narration stating that all the events we have seen in the film are in need of yet further analysis.
It's hard to say whether STEREO succeeds or fails without knowing Cronenberg's real intent - as a stand-alone experimental film it's no better or worse than many other student features, but if its aim is to portray a fictitious medical report in a documentary style, then it does so suitably. All of this is to the expense of involvement, however. The bloodless delivery of unending pseudoscience makes this difficult viewing, although there are some intriguing nuggets buried within (Cronenberg's wry take on heterosexuality, for example). In fact, STEREO rejects the notion of film as a medium of communication and sets out, almost as a put-on, to alienate its viewers instead: Cronenberg is more interested in framing his 'actors' within chic, modernist buildings than providing his visuals with any human impetus; the lengthy silent passages give us a rest from the unwieldy narration but do not serve to clarify what anyone in the film is feeling; and the only real 'action' sequence, in which someone is chased through a building, is no more than a psychic projection. I don't think this is misjudgment on Cronenberg's part. By crafting his film in a subconscious, elusive manner, he may have hoped to simulate the subject of his story - because we see no characters speak and understand only fragments of what we hear in between the silences, it may be that STEREO tries to be a conduit to its own telepathic essaying.
STEREO has much in common with its nominal companion piece, CRIMES OF THE FUTURE. They have identical running times, the same cast, and share the same filming approach (silent with voice-overs added) and visual sense (people continuously framed against architecture). The narration of the latter is a little less technical, but just as oblique and delivered even more soporifically. It is these similarities that make it hard to separate the two beyond the most technically apparent features - that is, CRIMES is in color and its soundtrack is punctuated by intrusively dubbed biological sound effects. But whereas STEREO examines the evolution of mental processes that would eventually culminate in films like SCANNERS and THE DEAD ZONE, CRIMES ponders on the evolution/regression/mutation of the body itself - ideas which Cronenberg would develop more fully in RABID, VIDEODROME, and THE FLY (THE BROOD would be his ultimate collision of both themes). The storyline of CRIMES is more expansive and science-fictional: a young doctor explores different medical disciplines/factions that have evolved from research into an apocalyptic disease. These vary in scope from dermatology to neo-venereal diseases to a sort of therapeutic podiatry - by the time it gets to this level you get the impression that Cronenberg is pulling the audience's leg as well his cast's.
Delivered once again in the stoic, emotionless manner of STEREO, CRIMES, like its predecessor, also serves to alienate, although this time it uses the device as a reflection of its characters. Theirs is an austere, clinical world in which the child-bearing female population has all but died out. The only purpose of the male survivors is to formulate, research, and experiment. By the film's end their conclusions should be provocative but instead become just as detached as everything else that has gone before, leaving us to wonder what the 'crimes' of the future really are. Or perhaps, ending where the film does, the title refers to crimes of the future beyond that of the present story. It could be for this reason that in the final scene the protagonist sheds a single tear. It's about time: after two features and two hours of calculation, Cronenberg is ready to put his obsessions to more direct work. What's probably most interesting about this intimate pair of films is that they give no indication of the global cult status and success that their director was to earn. Footnote: Cronenberg gave 1998's eXistenZ the working title CRIMES OF THE FUTURE, which led to many fans anticipating - or dreading - a revisitation of his early experimental style.
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