The New York Times - USA (2020-10-15)

THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2020 Y C5

In an early version, Vos was a man. I was

responding to my experiences so defaulted

to a male character. There are a few reasons

that changed. I had already done a male

lead [in “Antiviral”], and we’ve all seen

films about husbands who have seen too

much on the job to relate to family. We’ve

seen “Hurt Locker.” That contrast between

bodies was more interesting. Suddenly

you’re exploring gender. It’s more inher-

ently interesting if she has a penis.

You said interviews for the press tour of

your first movie inspired this one.

When you’re traveling with a film for the

first time, it’s incredibly surreal. You are

building this persona and performing this

version of yourself that becomes a media

self that has its own weird life without you.

What’s the relationship between you right

The stylish new horror movie “Possessor

Uncut” is about a corporation that hijacks

people’s bodies and minds to body-swap an

assassin who will kill others before commit-

ting suicide. Sounds outlandish? Tell that to

its director, Brandon Cronenberg, and he

will give you a pocket history of private mili-

taries and the all-too-real neuroscience be-

hind mind control. The technology is ahead

of its time, he assures me, but still rooted in

the real world.

Talking over Zoom from his home in To-

ronto, Cronenberg, who has received su-

perb reviews for the feature, his second af-

ter the 2013 “Antiviral,” said he had set his

movie (in theaters now) in the recent past

because he was less interested in predicting

the future than in illuminating what tech-

nology is doing to us today. Cronenberg’s

use of grisly violence and his probing, pro-

vocative focus on the relationships between

mind and body as well as sex and violence

have earned comparisons with the movies

of his father, David.

In conversation, he seems uninterested

in talking about his horror lineage, even as

his intellectual approach to unsettling audi-

ences invites it. Asked why fans find spilled

blood beautiful, Cronenberg responded that

viscous red liquid makes for striking im-

ages, adding, “It can also be metaphorically

poignant, bringing what’s inside us out and

making art of it.”

Here are edited excerpts from our con-

versation.

You released a horror movie during a pan-

demic. Will Covid-19 change what scares

people?

Certainly a generation will be terrified by

this. There will absolutely be a wave of virus

movies. I wonder if people will want to see

them. Maybe we need to approach the reali-

ties of viral life from a more metaphorical

level and have something stand in for the

virus. Because usually of course the virus in

horror stands in for something else, a meta-

phor for other fears.

So the pandemic changes pandemic movies

because viruses can’t be anything but

literal?

You can’t take it as a metaphor. It’s just

reality. It’s like taking breakfast as a

metaphor.

Is “Possessor,” a movie about bodies being

infiltrated and forced to kill themselves, a

metaphor for our democracy?

Absolutely. If you look at Russian interfer-

ence in the U.S. elections, we’re all really

hackable right now. We’re all open to invisi-

ble influence in a way that previously would

have sounded like conspiracy theories but

now sound like open truths. The Snowden

leaks happened early in script develop-

ment. That was the root of a lot of the tech-

nology satire [in “Possessor”], but it’s be-

come related to behavioral control. That’s

our next big problem: the more invisible

ways that technology is shaping society

through social media.

Is that why you are not on social media?

I don’t like the psychological landscape of

social media. I don’t like who I am, and I

don’t like who my friends are. I find these

people I absolutely love become these com-

plete aliens on social media. It’s just the

pressure of that structure of communicat-

ing.

Your main character, Tasya Vos (played

chillingly by Andrea Riseborough), is an

assassin who seems much more comfort-

able in other people’s skin than her own.

The film came from a very personal place. I

am very interested in the way we perform

for ourselves and the relationship between

self-perception and performance. And the

film is rooted in my own trivial exploration

of those things, moments feeling discon-

nected from my life or having to perform a

character, which I think are common expe-

riences but say a lot about what it means to

be people.

Vos, a white woman, enters the bodies of a

Black woman and a white man. Why these

bodies?

now talking to me and who you are?

An interview is an incredibly artificial and

strange interaction. I don’t mind inter-

views, but obviously neither of us are be-

having like people right now. We wouldn’t

be talking like this if we met at a bar. We’re

performingourselves. On the other hand, I

don’t believe that beneath the surface you

can ever get to the point where you ever ac-

tually are yourself. There’s an internal per-

formance that we all engage with in a day-

to-day way and a performance for other

people. Neither are real. It’s all perform-

ance.

If life is all performance, does that mean it’s

less about searching for who you are than

discovering the character that fits?

I think so. I think we’re constantly building

ourselves, and the issue is who we are re-

flexively can be out of sync with our self-

perception — and who we are is very much

decided by our environment and outside

forces.

You grew up around movies. Do you think

that being around your father’s sets as a kid

informed your work?

Being around sets demystifies the filmmak-

ing process. Going into film school, people

who didn’t have those experiences found

sets to be more magical. But when you’re

there, it’s actually pretty boring. To a de-

gree, I absorbed that.

Reviewers of “Possessor” made a lot of

comparisons to your dad’s movies.

I get those questions a lot and the truth is:

I’m making movies that are interesting to

me and honest to my own creative im-

pulses. Before I got into filmmaking, one of

the things I tried to do was to be a visual

artist — and I got comparisons to my father.

I think people like to see those patterns and

it’s something you can’t escape.

Both of your movies are violent, visceral and

unsettling. Is this the aim or just where the

characters and story take you?

I’m more interested in films that push me

into an uncomfortable space. When you’re

watching a movie like that, you’re exploring

an aspect of the human emotional spectrum

that you might not be in [daily]. I don’t want

comfort food when I’m sitting down to

watch something. On the other hand,

there’s a danger to focus too much on unset-

tling, because it could come off as juvenile

or empty if the unsettling content isn’t serv-

ing other ideas.

Do you recall the first time you were

scared?

My earliest memory is of being in my crib

and having a dream where a bat landed on

my face.

A Director Tries to Illuminate

How Technology Is Subduing Us

Brandon Cronenberg, who has

a new film, argues that none

of us are ever truly ourselves.

MARK SOMMERFELD FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

By JASON ZINOMAN

NEON

Top, Brandon Cronenberg, in

Toronto, says his new film,

“Possessor Uncut,” is rooted in

“moments feeling

disconnected from my life.”

Center, a scene from the movie.

Above, Andrea Riseborough

(right, opposite Jennifer Jason

Leigh) is a body-swapping

assassin in the film.

NEON

FOUR YOUNG SUPERSTARSshine brightly in

“Blackpink: Light Up the Sky,” a brief but

endearing introduction to the idolized K-

pop girl group. The documentary (on Net-

flix) arrives just under two weeks after the

release of Blackpink’s debut album, and

while its salute to the artists flicks at the

cynical side of their industry, it is less a

probing profile than a backstage pass for

fans of the band (a.k.a. Blinks) old and new.

The director, Caroline Suh, combines nat-

uralistic, on-the-go footage of the group

with separate interviews with its members:

Jisoo, Jennie, Lisa and Rosé. They are an in-

ternational ensemble — Jisoo and Jennie

were born and raised in South Korea, Lisa is

Thai and Rosé is from New Zealand — and

as Suh traces each of their young lives, she

allows their singular personalities and

styles to come into focus.

This emphasis on individuality is espe-

cially valuable when set against a music

business notorious for pruning its artists

into a glossy commodity. Suh opens the doc-

umentary in 2016, on the day that YG Enter-

tainment, the South Korean music mono-

lith, debuted Blackpink at a news confer-

ence. Reporters type furiously as they be-

hold the nervous girls who had striven for

this moment since YG recruited them to its

intensive, live-in pop conservatory years

earlier.

Alongside clips of their recitals, the girls

allude to the rigor of their training: long

hours, harsh criticisms, a competitive at-

mosphere. Jennie laments leaving home so

young; Rosé diplomatically says the era

“wasn’t a very happy vibe.” In its best mo-

ments, the documentary draws a line from

the challenging lives Blackpink led as train-

ees to the pressure and loneliness they now

face as global celebrities, forced to make

besties with their makeup artist or private

Pilates instructor.

It’s a shame that these complicating mo-

ments are few, and “Blackpink: Light Up

the Sky” declines to dig deeper into the

ways YG engineers and commercializes tal-

ent at such a young age. Here is an economy

in which companies make millions by work-

ing kids to the bone. Skimming the topic is a

missed opportunity, but the film’s winsome

stars are its saving grace.

NATALIA WINKELMAN FILM REVIEW

The Glowing Young Superstars of Blackpink

A K-pop girl group takes center

stage in this documentary.

NETFLIX

Blackpink: Light Up the Sky

Not rated. In Korean and English, with

subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 19 minutes.

Watch on Netflix.

The group Blackpink with, from

left, Lisa, Jisoo, Rosé and

Jennie in “Blackpink: Light Up

the Sky.”

THE PROLIFIC DOCUMENTARIAN
Alex Gibney has always worked
quickly, but “Totally Under Con-
trol,” which he directed with Su-
zanne Hillinger and Ophelia
Harutyunyan, finds him revisiting
headlines for which the ink has
barely dried.
Surely viewers, unless they’ve
been distancing in an internet-
free bunker for the past 10
months, don’t lack for reminders
of the current global pandemic.
There is also no shortage of re-
porting on how the United States
botched its response.
Furthermore, a fixed feature
documentary on current events
invariably lags behind breaking
news.
The movie can’t do much more
than shoehorn a major late devel-
opment into a closing title card:
“One day after the completion of
this film, President Donald Trump
revealed that he had tested pos-
itive for Covid-19.”
So who exactly needs a docu-
mentary on, by now, an intensely
familiar and rapidly evolving
global cataclysm?
And what purpose could it
serve? For a start, Gibney told
The Los Angeles Times that he
wanted the film to function as a
“report card” on the government’s
handling of the pandemic that
viewers could see before they
vote.
But “Totally Under Control” has
another, implicit goal: It elevates
voices who sounded early alarms
about the virus and whose warn-
ings were lost in a din of compla-

cency, incompetence and political
calculation.
Not all of these interviewees or
their messages have broken
through to the public conscious-
ness.
It is startling, for instance, to
hear Dr. Eva Lee, who models in-
fectious diseases, estimate that
when the United States confirmed
its first case of Covid-19 in Wash-
ington State, a time lapse and the
possibility of cascading spread
meant that 2,000 people needed to
be tested and weren’t.
Dr. Francis Riedo in the Seattle
area recalls testing mystery pneu-
monia patients in his intensive
care unit early in the outbreak and
finding that all but one had
Covid-19. (Gibney explains in
voice-over that the filmmakers
sought to take precautions during
interviews, sometimes by sending
a ready-made camera system to
the subjects.)
The New York Times reporter
Michael D. Shear, who himself
tested positive for the coronavirus
on Oct. 2, summarizes the conflict-
ing messages offered by the
Trump administration’s medical
experts and economic boosters.
(Another Times reporter, Eric
Lipton, is credited as a consult-
ant.)
And Max Kennedy Jr., who vol-
unteered to help a task force as-
sembled by Jared Kushner obtain
personal protective equipment,
describes a blind spot of the ad-
ministration’s industry-first ap-
proach.
“The whole philosophy of the
task force was that the govern-
ment can’t get things done,” he
says.
Most of what’s in “Totally Un-
der Control” has been thoroughly
covered elsewhere, and even the
particular clips of angry, maskless
supermarket shoppers are likely
to be familiar to many viewers.
To the extent that this fast-
paced recap has a method, it’s to
distill the institutional failings of
the past year to a continuously in-
volving and outraging two-hour
highlight reel.
At that, the movie succeeds,
even if it’s a reel that demands a
follow-up.

BEN KENIGSBERG

FILM REVIEW

Pandemic

Response

Continues

To Evolve

An early arrival in a

wave of documentaries

about Covid-19.

A scene from “Totally Under
Control,” a documentary film
directed by Alex Gibney, Suzanne
Hillinger and Ophelia Harutyunyan.

NEON AND PARTICIPANT

Totally Under Control
Not rated. Running time: 2 hours 3
minutes. Rent or buy on Google
Play, Vudu and other streaming
platforms.