"deep" concept. It's about the human tendency to intentionally replace reality with an artificial both in its origin and in its behavior world of make-believe.The most chilling moment in the movie is when Allegra Geller repeats her "scripted" line. It's at that point you realize that the people in the game have voluntarily surrendered their free will in order to participate in a story. This is made even more frightening at the end when D'Arcy Nader or rather his player comments on the possibility of spending one's life in the game. I sympathize completely with the "realist" philosophy, that providing interesting worlds in which people simply locate the correct predefined path to the end goal is ultimately a recipe for a soulless existence. Living "in the game" is not living at all, but is a tempting way to spend one's time on earth. As Allegra comments about the real world, "there's nothing going on here." Might as well jack into someone else's imagination, and pretend to be doing something interesting. Although I have to ask whether Cronenberg considers this a self-indictment, considering that he himself offers up worlds to be experienced in 90 minute snippets. Upon leaving the theater after first watching this movie, I thought it was one of those movies that was watchable only to see how it ended. But having seen it a couple more times thank you SciFi Channel I've realized how much deeper it goes. Seriously, if you've only seen it once, it deserves another viewing.

behaviour. Living out fantasies is something people always dream of, but how far can you go into it, before reality gets blurred and the fantasy takes over and turns into a nightmare? Those are the themes touched in eXistenZ, an exploration of identity, the human psyche, physical bodies being invaded by disease and most importantly, reality itself.The story and directing are excellent. Cronenberg knows his trade very well and succesfully brings to life an artificial world, avoiding the usual pitfalls and clichés linked to stories such as this. The film shows some pretty disgusting stuff, but is unusually low-key in the gore department in comparison to Cronenbergs other work. The shock effects he plays on are never over the top and the plot progression is very intelligent and creative. It's not the most intellectual movie ever, but it will leave you thinking about it, wondering and pretty confused.The acting gets two thumbs up as well. Both protagonists, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jude Law, play their parts perfectly and cleverly portray their character's shifting moods and identities. The dialogue may seem a little stale and clinical at times, but that is part of the effect Cronenberg was going for, to create a disaffected and alien atmosphere that puts you quite at unease. Supporting actors as Ian Holm, Don McKellar and an especially creepy Willem Dafoe lift the movie even higher with their disturbingly familiar performances.This movie takes some getting used to, but if you can appreciate the dark tone, blood-curdeling imagery and existentially warping story, you'll love it.

gross, it is disturbing, and it is funny. David Cronenberg has done some shonky stuff Rabid and some works of genius too Videodrome is another one worth checking out, as is Stephen King adaptation The Dead Zone . But this is one of my all-time favourites. I can't remember the ending- which is a good thing, cos it means I can watch it again. Or perhaps I never watched this film at all. Maybe it's an implanted memory. Or maybe it 'really' happened to me. I don't know. At any rate, it is now seamlessly stitched into my overall illusion of reality, and I'm glad.

best performance.Although I was very impressed I don't recommend "eXistenZ" for everyone. It could be described as an anti-"Matrix". Not in an intentional sense since they were being made at the same time, but rather in their respective target audiences. So if you seek it out because you really liked "The Matrix", you may be disappointed.It has a fairly narrow target audience and because of this it was not aggressively distributed in the U.S. and did much better in Europe. Generally those who really connected to "The Matrix" will find it insufficiently manipulative requiring too much viewer self-analysis and participation while those who hated "The Matrix" will hate it for being too manipulative. So if you found "Matrix" generally intriguing but did not go ga-gah over it, you should make it a point to check out "eXistenZ".It is not really sci-fi or action adventure but a psychological thriller just as "The Hole" is not a horror film but a psychological thriller . It places Kurt Vonnegut's theme "you are what you pretend to be so be careful what you pretend to be" into an allegorical tale of shifting reality. Do we ever actually exercise free will? Does escaping from reality contribute to reality getting worse, in actuality or in our perception? You are meant to internalize this theme and to ask yourself these questions.My only real complaint is that the final twist unlike the earlier twists does not click into place when you first see in or later as you work backwards to find clues and foreshadowing elements that support this element. Without these the twist is silly and unnecessary. While it does not ruin all that has gone before it does seem like just a lame attempt to prepare the way for a sequel.

designer Allegra Geller, at a testing seminar for her new project eXistenZ small 'E', capital 'X', capital 'Z' , she is forced to go on the run, accompanied by marketing trainee Ted Pikul Lude Law .Unfortunately, during the assassination attempt, the gaming pod holding the only copy of eXistenZ is damaged, and so Allegra and Ted plug themselves into the programme to ensure that it has not been seriously impaired. What follows can only be described as a complete mind-f*!k!Ted and Allegra become increasingly disorientated as they play the game, their characters within eXistenZ plugging into virtual pods that take them into games within games. Eventually, neither they, nor the audience, can tell what is real and what is game-play, and even at the end of the film where events finally seem to make sense, the film's final line of dialogue sows seeds of doubt into the viewer's mind.Gorehounds might be a little disappointed with the level of splatter in this particular Cronenberg effort, with the only gruesome effects being a few bullet hits some admittedly nasty ones to the face of one poor sap, mind you and the juicy internal workings of a game pod, but with an excellent cast that includes Willem Dafoe and Ian Holm, and loads of weirdness, anyone who loves intelligent, thought provoking sci-fi with a surreal twist should have a blast.Oh, and Jennifer Jason Leigh still looks fabulous; I'd let her plug me into her meta-flesh pod any day!

give in to the confusion because it offers a break from conscious thinking and inhibitions and opens up previously unknown avenues of imagination. What at first seems incoherent in this movie becomes more and more believable as images, characters, phrases, etc repeat themselves in fragments that you slowly begin to recognize subconsciously. Everything starts to make vague sense yet you won't be able to put your umbilical cord on exactly what it is the dream or your own unconscious mind is trying to tell you. The story operates in the same way that the plot of a dream does,gliding from one situation to another seemingly at random, you cannot remember exactly where you came from, how long you'd been there, or why you'd been there but you gain a sense of reverence for the places you've been and the people you've met because they all make strange cosmic sense to you, they embody all of your deepest fears and desires so honestly that you cannot help but be grateful to them. Forget any coherent message or intelligent thought when you experience this movie because they are unnecessary to dream with.For maximum harmonic understanding, ingest a handful of dubiously obtained Armenian sleeping pills, hang upside down from the ceiling of your lair whilst double fisting two bloated goat stomachs full of your great grandmother's long-frozen/now-thawed bReaSt miLk. Play the movie backwards with the sound going forwards on a loop for as long as it takes to you know what with you know who in you know where you tyrant demon basterdÂ….

conspiracies blend levels, reversing and folding roles. This is the stuff of Phil Dick, not the Matrix, or The One, or any of that other juvenile stuff.But there is a more fundamental difference: Films like the matrix start with a story concept, then work to tell the story by whatever visual vocabulary is current. Cronenberg starts with a specific strong vision and hangs a story on it. Clearly, his vision here is for artificially living sexual paraphernalia. These have highly erotic exteriors but disgusting, reptilian interiors. The whole film is built around this notion: prurient fiction, repellent pudenda.And the whole thing self-referentially encompasses the audience with the final level because the film clearly shows itself to be a creation in the same mold as Allegra's. I love this stuff, if only as an intellectual construction.But what puzzles me is Cronenberg's meekness. He knows he's a cult filmmaker, so why pander to a bunch of kids who will go to `The One' instead? Jennifer has the guts to do whatever is required. Her presence here shows edge by reference, because we know that she would risk all if asked. But she's not asked. I predict that in a decade or so, as a reaction to special effects fatigue, someone with more courage will remake this with an X rating and more of an obvious Marienbad feel. Maybe you, dear reader.

possible infection, but Allegra convinces him to go to the gas station, where she asks the attendant Gas Willen Dafoe to make a hole in Ted's spine and install a bio-port. Sooner she learns that Gas works for the enemy, but Ted and she play eXistenZ, in a bizarre virtual world. When the game merges in the real life, Ted and Allegra question whether they are still playing the game or whether the game has been transported to the real world. "eXistenz" is another bizarre and original film by David Cronenberg, with a weird and gruesome concept of virtual reality. The twisted story has similarities with "Matrix", entwining virtual world with reality, but both were made in the same year 1999 ; therefore it seems that there is no plagiarization of the idea. Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jude Law show a great chemistry and the plot has many twists. Surprisingly, "eXistenz" has not been released in Brasil neither on DVD nor in blu-ray. My vote is eight.Title Brazil : Not Available

even sure Cronenberg pretends that twist won't be there, it's so incredibly obvious in a sense it's kind of disconcerting.The problem with this film though is its base nature, in a sense. Cronenberg is questioning reality AND criticizing game play. Yet the same things that he uses to criticize game play makes him revel in it: the violence, the discontinuity, the lack of focus and in a sense, the pixellation even if there isn't such pixellation in the film. I have once heard someone state that Cronenberg's violence is actually a criticism of hyperviolence in media, but he hides that well with the fact that he derives such incredible pleasure in ripping new orifices into humans, animals, and amorphous piles of biological sludge.What IS brilliantly written and done about this movie is the use of video game conceits not being able to say exactly what you want to say during cut scenes, relative lack of surroundings or surroundings that don't make sense, only a few people around where it feels there should be many and vice-versa, all of that stuff along with the motif of penetration. It definitely deconstructs the video game reality in a way that's nauseating and absurd, but it does it even better by replacing video game electronics with literal "pods" of biological matter that squirm and shift and are, frankly, disgusting to the one of the most horrifying degrees. For what it's worth, this film causes a reaction in you.But what for? It criticizes virtual reality, but it's a movie: it is its own virtual reality. It seems to criticize the banality of video game plot lines and character design, yet it maintains that banality. It definitely seems to worry over whether killing a video game character is more okay than killing an actual human being and how video games can be confused with reality and cause people to not think about the consequences of their actions in real life, and yet I say again, it derives the utmost pleasure from ripping people, objects, beasts, things, and organisms into bloody shreds.So whereas it has a key focus of angst, it doesn't really do anything with it, not really. Only what it does do is present that angst in such an original way it can't really be denied its own moment of splendor.In a sense, it'd be much easier to just hate this movie for being gory and violent, because there's no good reason I can see for loving it and yet I can't disregard it as mediocre or bad. It'd be easier to simply not be able to take it, but since I can, there's nothing I can really do with it. I do believe it is a little excessive, it really didn't need to go as far as it went, but Cronenberg's intentions are so mixed up and confused I don't know if that was Cronenberg's flaw or Cronenberg's point, and I don't think there's really any way to figure it out except maybe ask him directly.--PolarisDiB