Today my husband and I took the train to Amsterdam to see Cosmopolis. Kriterion is the only cinema in Amsterdam that currently shows this film. At Kriterion, we had to take two flights of stairs, all the way to the top floor of the building. We appeared to be two of the fourteen people in the audience. In the seat behind us was a man who didn’t know the film was based on the book by Don DeLillo, but had come because the film is directed by David Cronenberg. Who, the man said, generally makes ‘horror movies’. Now, I know that Cronenberg has directed some frightening films, but I wouldn’t call him a horror director per se, especially after having watched A Dangerous Method.
Yes, Eric Packer wants a haircut although he doesn’t physically need one. However, he does need the feelings he gets when going to the barber. It’s about the associations that go with it. From shot #1 to the final shot it’s Robert Pattinson you see and hear. Because there’s a lot of talking. Now, don’t say you haven’t been warned! Cronenberg has repeatedly shared with us in interviews that he literally took the dialogue from DeLillo’s book and started writing the script around it.
What both my husband and myself got from the book, was the incredibly insightful prose. There is definitely quite some philosophy going on in the book and we found ourselves reading and re-reading sentences just to figure out what was meant by them. The thing is that this is really difficult when you’re watching a film because one moment the sentence is there and then it’s gone again and you’re knocked over by another line. The thing is that the characters and the sets in the film didn’t really help in interpreting what was said. It kind of felt like I was a boxer in a boxing match with an opponent that was way more agile and strong; you have to keep on your toes. Let’s not forget I had the advantage of having read the book over the guy who was behind me and didn’t even know the film was based on it. He left the room halfway through the movie. Probably because this film was in no way a horror film and the dialogue is a constant stream of stimuli.
What’s also pretty spectacular is that most of the film is set in a stretch limousine equipped with an abundance of technology. Cronenberg had to direct through a microphone and it had to be possible to take the limousine apart in a variety of ways. I must say that this has been done pretty ingeniously.
The dialogue that is oftentimes witty is delivered in such a dry manner by the actors that you sometimes wonder if it’s even funny what they’re saying. Pattinson shines as the disconnected Eric Packer. I have to add that he doesn’t always seem disconnected, though. Sometimes, especially nearing the end of the film, there’s this hopeful shimmer in his eyes, like he’s on the precipice of feeling something real.
I think the last scene with his head of security Torval (Kevin Durand) is one of my favourite scenes of the film. Especially when Eric Packer whispers “Nancy Babich” to his gun in a later scene. Unfortunately, at this scene, four other people had left the theatre. Why leave in the middle of a film?!
Money has indeed “lost its narrative”, but “the urge to destroy is a creative urge” and sometimes we have to utterly destroy something in order to move forward, which is sometimes moving backward. For example, when Eric talks to Shiner and they’re – albeit jokingly – thinking about introducing a new currency called “the Rat”, there is an eerie prophesy for the new (local) currencies that have since developed in Argentina and Greece. People are starting to take responsibility and are no longer waiting for policy makers to make decisions for them. Money gets back its narrative.
