Cosmopolis

David Cronenberg Cosmopolis Drama • 2012 • 1h 45m

Reviewed by Beatrice 23. June 2023

Erick Packer is twenty-eight years old and a billionaire. Imprisoned by wealth in his limousine with every comfort and impervious to every event he tours a chaotic New York.

Everything is planned: business, sexual encounters, daily medical check-ups, security, travel. Soundproofed and armored his life encounters riots against the economic situation and old suburbs seen through the windows as from an aquarium.

An icy, calculated hell made of virtual investments and landlords, incomprehensible fluctuations of the yuan.

A film of excellent experimentation, a metaphor for capitalism and the demise of the West.

"The voracious rat becomes the monetary unit"; there is often a feeling of not knowing what you are doing however, money becomes like "putting gum in your mouth and trying not to chew it"; "life is too contemporary"; "what is the allure of the identical?"

"Sex is an antidote to disillusionment"; "wealth is an end in itself, money creates time"; " computers are now merged with everyday reality".

"The logical evolution of business is murder"; " it is necessary to stun DNA to feel more"; " does drug novo make pain go away? There is enough pain for everyone."

He meets a man who wants to kill him to make sense of his life, because Erick is not a reflective man and because his life is all contradiction, that's why he is planning his downfall.

Erick confesses, " I couldn't understand the yuan," and he doesn't like that someone wants to force him to be thoughtful.

He is self-centered, he has no remorse, he is a "powerless robot" even though for him violence requires a cause, a burden, a purpose....

He has not understood that his body and his asymmetrical prostate represents the answer: imperfection and limitation.

But he will fall like Icarus, flown too high, affected by hybris, the hubris punished by the gods: lack of limit exposes to failure, not only personal, unfortunately, as in this case.

A vision that is far from eschatological, rather apocalyptic: progress is not salvation, the future will not be redemption.

A sophisticated and refined film for a very discerning audience. A researched portrait of reality, a unique way of representing it: a lucid, stark, terribly sensible realization that one would like to see more often.

An 'unforgettable experience.

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