eXistenZ (1999)

Director:

David Cronenberg

Writer:

David Cronenberg (written by)

Release Date:

23 April 1999 (USA)

Genre:

Horror | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Tagline:

Play it. Live it. Kill for it.

Plot:

A game designer on the run from assassins must play her latest virtual reality creation with a marketing trainee to determine if the game has been damaged.

Plot Keywords:

Reality | Virtual Reality | Gun | Alternative Reality | Shot In The Back

Awards:

3 wins & 7 nominations

Cast

Jennifer Jason Leigh	...	Allegra Geller
Jude Law	...	Ted Pikul
Ian Holm	...	Kiri Vinokur
Willem Dafoe	...	Gas
Don McKellar	...	Yevgeny Nourish
Callum Keith Rennie	...	Hugo Carlaw
Christopher Eccleston	...	Seminar Leader
Sarah Polley	...	Merle
Robert A. Silverman	...	D'Arcy Nader
Oscar Hsu	...	Chinese Waiter
Kris Lemche	...	Noel Dichter
Vik Sahay	...	Male Assistant
Kirsten Johnson	...	Female Assistant
James Kirchner	...	Landry
Balázs Koós	...	Male Volunteer

Also Known As:

Crimes of the Future (Canada: English title) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated R for strong sci-fi violence and gore, and for language.

Runtime:

97 min

Country:

Canada | UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Spain:18 | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Belgium:KNT | Finland:K-16 | France:-12 | Germany:16 | Hong Kong:IIB | Netherlands:16 | New Zealand:M | Norway:15 | Peru:14 | Portugal:M/16 | Singapore:PG | South Korea:18 | Sweden:15 | Switzerland:16 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:16 (canton of Vaud) | UK:15 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Rockwood Conservation Area, Ontario, Canada

Company:

Alliance Atlantis Communications

Trivia:

When Kiri and his assistant operate on Allegra's pod, Kiri says, "Köszönöm, köszönöm, köszönöm," Hungarian for "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

Goofs:

Continuity: The first time we see Ted Pikul at the trout farm, he labels an envelope with the letters LA. The L is clearly connected to the A. However in the next shot with the envelope on the conveyor belt the L and A are no longer connected.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Seminar Leader: eXistenZ. Written like this. One word. Small 'E', capital 'X', capital 'Z'. 'eXistenZ'. It's new, it's from Antenna Research, and it's here... right now.

Movie Connections:

Featured in De la guerre (2008)

Where do we come from? From virtual reality, sure.

David Cronenberg is doubtlessly one of the greatest directors alive and in activity (along with Lynch, Kiarostami, Kitano, Moretti, Oliveira, Rohmer, etc). Having seen almost all of his films (excluding "Dead Zone", "The Fly" and "M.Butterfly"), I have this somewhat rare opinion that "eXistenZ" is one of his masterpieces. It seems to me that this film was hugely misunderstood, culminating with the stupid idea of comparing this film to "Matrix", a rather worthless and meaningless piece of nonsense. Here in "eXistenZ", we have instead a very dense and deep meditation on the mystery of reality, of our inability to apprehend where do things come from. The characters appear and disappear as if moved by some mysterious agent, which remains inhapreenshible. Being Cronenberg a professed atheist, we can only arrive at the conclusion that each world which is presented to us and to the main characters comes from their own mind, which, nevertheless, only constitutes a part of the human body (it is now hazard that the characters have access to the game by means of something - a game pod - which is implanted into their bodies). Cronenberg stated many years ago that all reality is virtual; so, in this film, the use of the plot-device of virtual reality is a huge metaphor to the virtually of reality, as our director sees it.