Written by Dilan Fernando

Warning: The following review is of a film that is part of TIFF 2024 and may contain spoilers for The Shrouds. Reader discretion is advised.

If Stanley Kubrick’s masterwork 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) teaches us anything it’s that technology has contributed to the advancement and decline of mankind. The Shrouds (2024) David Cronenberg’s new film is a cautionary tale of a man whose dependence on technology is so strong it takes his grief and warps it into disillusionment. Karsh (Vincent Cassel) is a döppelganger or spiritual incarnation of Cronenberg himself. The source of Karsh’s grief is derived from the slow and painful death of his wife Becca (Diane Kruger) from terminal cancer, mirroring Cronenberg whose wife Carolyn (who worked as an assistant editor on The Brood (1979) passed away in 2017. Karsh is an executive and entrepreneur pioneering GraveTech. The company’s revolutionary technology is designed to help those mourning and grieving by installing cameras which playback digitally animated live video feeds casting them on screens built into each gravestone. Clients can watch their loved ones slowly decay before their very eyes. Cronenberg quickly establishes and emphasises the root of his filmmaking style, the automation of humans and their bodies, comparing them to the overbearing advancements of technology.

Karsh’s Teslas enters the GraveTech compound, he walks into the dining room of a restaurant and sees a woman seated at a table overlooking the burial plots. This is a blind date, likely his first after the death of his wife. There’s an unspoken perversity to the proximity of the restaurant and graveyard idealising the value of living with grief rather than working through it. For characters like Karsh the thought of overcoming grief is more painful than the grief itself, because the absence of grief overwrites the memories of the ones they mourn. Which is why Karsh has created bearable technology as he hasn’t yet learned how to live without a crutch. Once he learns to do that and if it’s ever applied to his technology, it’ll become obsolete. Cronenberg scatters visual cues of Karsh’s attachment to grief – a friendship with his wife’s twin sister Terry (also Diane Kruger), the way Karsh drives, and Hunny the technological assistant he’s created; all of which are paradoxical representing coping mechanisms and also exemplifying Karsh’s inability to cope.

Another friendship which is between Karsh and Terry’s ex-husband Maury (Guy Pearce) who is a hacker-for-hire and a pillar of the GraveTech enterprise (more than he’s given credit for) that Karsh seeks to create. Both men mourn for different reasons. They discuss the sources of their grief however, neither are confident to acknowledge their entire infrastructure of coping is within the hands of the other. Karsh is the connection for Maury possibly reuniting with Terry. Maury is the connection for Karsh’s reunion with Becca. One of the film’s most powerful images is when Karsh walks around a storage facility of GraveTech equipment after hours, removes a shroud from a display case, strips down and cloaks himself in its dark grey fabric. On a nearby computer screen his image is uploaded showing his premature burial.

Plagued by visions, paranoia, and the slow deterioration of his health, two psychosexual affairs begin. An early scene in the film shows Karsh going in for a routine dental cleaning, his dentist remarks that Karsh’s teeth are decaying faster than usual, “This is what grief does.” (pointing to the teeth with a plaque remover). Heeding the dentist’s warning, Karsh continues to focus his attention on building and expanding GraveTech attracting the attention of a European business mogul. Karsh feels inclined to help the mogul (Ingvar Surgidsson) because of a personal connection, as the mogul’s health wanes due to the chemical fumes that have begun to fill the air in his European homeland from the industrialization of farming practices. The mogul knows he’ll die and hopes Karsh will bring some ease to his suffering by bringing GraveTech to his country. Standing alongside, the mogul through the arduous process of dying is his blind wife Soo-Min (Sandrine Holt) who develops a connection to Karsh. Returning home, Karsh’s friendship with Terry continues to excel as he tries to make some sense of Becca’s death by analysing his emotions. His feelings come from a sincere place deep-rooted in psychosis, slowly drifting into paranoia. Two affairs, one physical the other emotional both derived from an inability to see.

This film shares a spiritual connection to The Brood (1979) – arguably Cronenberg’s best film, also depicting the lives of people deeply affected by the loss of a spouse. Each film shows the great strides mankind will make to enhance nature for their own selfish benefit, claiming it to be a selfless gesture of progression for the sake of humanity.

Dilan Fernando graduated with a degree in Communications from Brock University. ”Written sentiments are more poetic than spoken word. Film will always preserve more than digital could ever. Only after a great film experience can one begin to see all that life has to offer.“