The Grim Cellar

1969, Canada, Directed by David Cronenberg

Colour, Running Time: 63 minutes

DVD, Region 1, Blue Underground, Video: Anamorphic 1.66:1, Audio: Mono

Prior to Stereo (1967) David Cronenberg had been uncertain where to take his career and had flirted with proceeding along the science route to the point of enrolling and studying for a while, but a certain degree of boredom followed. Having switched academic direction to focus on English Literature he’d met a number of amateur film-makers and become fascinated by the immediacy of the results, therefore he began to dabble teaching himself the technical ins and outs of the art of film-making. Following two experimental shorts he persuaded the Canadian Council to provide some funding under the illusion he would be writing fiction, something he’d previously attempted to achieve success at via submission of short stories, though to no avail. The result was Stereo and pleased with the clinical product he was inspired to continue: he wrote and directed Crimes of the Future, something that resonates on similar levels to his previous work while foreshadowing elements that would materialise again in some of his later films.

Narrated by the controller of some kind of medical institution we’re exposed to the odd man’s fascination with various forms of sexual deviation and its occasionally consequential diseases. Along the way he comes across a person whose body produces complex miniature organs, described as a ‘creative cancer’ - this is no doubt the seed of Cronenberg’s frequent explorations of so-called body horror; the mutation of an organism into something else, whether it be evolutionary or initiated by the infiltration of an alien (not as in extraterrestrial) entity. There are influences here along with his future work that are derived from his earlier scientific studying, something cultivated by his father who openly encouraged anything Cronenberg would become passionate about no matter how transient it might prove. The richness of the director’s educational childhood would feed his visceral imagination later on with an abundance of unusual concepts, no doubt assisted by the fact that both of his parents were creatively inclined. However, his ideas would take time to filter and develop into something palatable by the general public and neither Stereo nor Crimes… can claim to be this. Like Stereo this later film, now shot in colour, is hard to digest and almost impossible to actually enjoy. Despite that there are occasions when it’s not easy to turn one’s eye away from the screen, such is the unusual nature of occurrences on screen - you never really know what’s going to happen next or where the meagre story will take you. Shot on 35mm film the look is fantastic and Cronenberg’s use of architecture is profound, his characters wandering around complicated structures that create a sense of foreboding. Much of the material is silent (though not to the same extent as Stereo), punctuated by the voice of the strange narrator in a rather Hal-esque fashion along with intermittent industrial sound effects that pre-empt David Lynch’s Eraserhead. The inhabitants of the institutes are so unusual, residents of another dimension almost, that the viewer won’t find it easy to connect emotionally with the material. On an intellectual level there is some food for thought, though it can reach academic levels of textbook iteration and therefore require concentration to comprehend and dissect. The explorations of homosexuality along with suggestions of other forms of sexual deviation border on the disturbing.

Blue Underground’s rescue of this incredibly obscure film is highly commendable - if not for them it could have remained unseen forever. The source material is in incredible condition and as a result the transfer looks like it could have been taken from a new film. The monaural soundtrack is in similarly excellent shape, the powerful silences uninterrupted by damage. Whilst one would have appreciated an accompanying director’s commentary we can’t ask for much more than this, though it may be hard to find on disc now as the hosting Fast Company double-discer is out of print. I am never going to love Crimes of the Future but as someone who admires much of its director’s subsequent offerings it is of historical and archival importance.