Capitalism in a jam in Cronenberg's Cosmopolis

Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg is back at the Cannes Film Festival this year with a cinematic epic poem about traffic jams and capitalism in crisis, based on a 2003 book by US literary giant Don DeLillo. 

Festival de Cannes

Cosmopolis is about 24 hours in the life of a financial whizzkid, Eric Packer, played with boyish panache by British actor Robert Pattinson, who many know as a Twilight vampire.

He wants to have his hair cut at a salon on the other side of the city but, because of a presidential visit, has to endure urban chaos.

The film reads like an epic poem, where no two characters speak at the same time and all dialogue is one-on-one, like a therapy session.

Cronenberg says he was able to remain very true to Don DeLillo’s futuristic novel written in 2003 and penned the script in six days, a personal record.

A big part of the action is shot inside Packer’s limousine. Some spectators laughed when he asks where limousines go at night, as another film in competition, Holy motors by Leos Carax, offers an answer.

As in many of Cronenberg’s films, a sense of detachment pervades his main character’s role. In Eric Packer’s case, everything becomes detached after he realises that he’s abruptly slipped from winner status to almighty loser.

The detachment makes benign all that would be dramatic in a different type of film.

It’s epitomised by Packer’s sexless relationship with his wife, played by Canadian-born Sarah Gadon who worked with Cronenberg in A Dangerous Method.

Two French actors, Juliette Binoche and Mathieu Almaric, are among the colourful, charming characters who flit in and out of or around Packer’s limo.

Winner of the jury’s prize in Cannes in 1996 for Crash, Cronenberg is almost a staple here.

And he was a member of the jury himself in 1999. Whether he wins an award or not at Cannes, Cronenberg must be quite chuffed that his son Brandon’s film Anti-viral is also in competition, in the Certain regard section.