Part of Shocktober
In the not too distant future, game designer Allegra Geller (Jennifer Jason Leigh) has developed the next step in the evolution of gaming. eXistenZ by Antenna is a whole new system that plugs directly into the spinal column and uses the structure of the brain as its playing field. The possibilities are near-limitless, and the difference between what is real and what is the game evaporates. Which is why a faction of realist fundamentalists have placed a death sentence on her head — sending her on the run with a junior publicist (Jude Law) through the backroads, restaurants, and adaptive polygons of a society transformed by technology into something new, but dangerously familiar. Future shock is now. With Sarah Polley, Willem Dafoe, Christopher Eccleston, and nearly every beloved Canadian character actor you can think of.
“Most films that explore the possibilities of virtual reality have some aspirations to sleek science fiction. Not David Cronenberg's. His EXISTENZ has the oozing, throbbing, ghoulish hallmarks of other Cronenberg fever dreams (NAKED LUNCH, THE FLY).” —Janet Maslin, New York Times (Apr 23, 1999) “EXISTENZ traces a delicate, humorous line between light satire and heavy forebodings…. [Jennifer Jason] Leigh, of course, is weird in everything she's in. A movie like this is her home.” —Desson Howe, Washington Post (Apr 23, 1999) “Before the ubiquity of artificial intelligence and virtual reality, EXISTENZ evokes a fickle, entangled relationship between technology and biology…. Although its helix of twists is better witnessed than described, the thrust of EXISTENZ is, in the end, as soothing as it is tormenting: technology offers little protection from our abasements and appetites.” —Indigo Bailey, The Guardian
