“The shrouds”, paradoxical monster of pain

By: Elora Bain

In some regions of Africa, it is customary to greet yourself with the formula “How is it going with pain?” —Raymond Depardon once made the title of a film. With pain, his own pain, it’s not for anyone, nowhere.

But when you are rich, powerful and learned, it is possible to make an artifact, even if it is strictly monstrous. And this is what Karsh, businessman and scientist does, affected by a name where both the echoes of Crash and “cash”. When you are a recognized filmmaker, it is possible to make a film, also in the strict monstrous sense.

Monstrous in that it is intended to be shown (this is the original meaning of the word “monster”) and because it concerns the fact of showing, to make visible (which is not supposed to be). And monstrous in that it is a “unnatural” assembly of heterogeneous elements.

What nature? Biological nature, that which organizes bodies – in particular human bodies – and their transformations according to a adjusted cycle. But also cultural nature, if you can say, that which manages the relationships between living and dead, shown and hidden, the public and the intimate. Even all that, each with his tools, the character of Karsh and the director David Cronenberg.

Elegant and freezing, Karsh is inconsolable from the death of his wife, Rebecca. From this inability to overcome this loss, he made a thriving business, thanks to technologies that allow to see, in real time on his smartphone, the evolution of the body of the deceased, to stay in visual contact with them, after they were buried in places equipped with perfected and connected video devices.

The film poses as acquired that there are wealthy people around the world ready to pay for it. It is possible that this is the case. On the edge of morbid voyeurism, tech and globalized financialization, we see how a “Cronenbergian” scenario could thus emerge from the very real mourning of the Canadian filmmaker. There is indeed public notoriety that David Cronenberg faced in extreme death, in 2017, of his wife Carolyn, who was also his closest collaborator as a producer since producer since Chromosome 3 in 1979.

The shrouds So mobilizes a certain approach to the “question of images”, rather on the side of those who watch them (spectators, therefore) than of those who create them, for example the filmmakers. In the center of the film, widens the inexhaustible vertigo of the scopic impulse, where Eros and Thanatos are rushed.

Simultaneously, the film also mobilizes the possible effects of technologies, with a singular part dedicated to artificial intelligence (AI) and the fantasy associated with eroticized relationships with machines. As many reasons that we are not surprised to find in the author of Videodrome (1983), The fly (1986), Pretense (1988), Crash (1996), d ‘existed (1999), Shadow promises (2007) or Cosmopolis (2012).

On this path, the first part of Shroud is stimulated by impeccable graphic rigor, where the appearance of Vincent Cassel-which on the screen seems to be echoed, seems to be a stylized avatar of itself-and the purified architectures of Karsh cybercimetes, the design of the decomposition bodies and that of the samurai costumes of the ultimate vision.

From the outburst to the overbidding

One wonders about what then happens, with the strength of other ingredients, themselves also from the palette of David Cronenberg. Thus, a great-guignolesque dreamlike unsettling the bare body and increasingly damaged by Diane Kruger. One thing is to question a possible sadism tapi in the passion for being loved, another is to try to make spectators enjoy them.

And the activation of the double mechanism (Rebecca, the dead – cuckoo Sir Alfred – has a sister, Terry, who suits her so much that she is played by the same actress) seems to be a bit heavy for the author of A DANGOUOUS METHOD (2011), which was not already very light.

At Karsh: his digital personal assistant imitating his deceased wife and a shroud images sensor, like the one in which he buried it. | Pyramid Distribution

In addition to this evil cauldron, general contamination by unlimited paranoia, mixing intimate phobias, geopolitical manipulations, delusional family revenge, Chinese consortium, medical evil, Mata Hari Retors and threatens algorithms in a form of multifaceous conspiracy, which is mainly bizarre of scriptwriting tips.

It is also in this that The shrouds is a monstrous film. By the way in which it first appears with sharp elegance, both moved and furious, towards intimate pain as towards the state of the world, then embarked by brewing narrative facilities and the effects of a flashy sleeve. With the suspicion that this extreme impurity, this formal imbalance, is exactly the aim sought.

Its hybrid nature becomes a way of refusing the hypothesis that in pain responds which would be similar to an accomplishment and therefore to a calm, a resolution. There is in the very form, in its imperfection tinkering extreme sophistication and triviality, something like a deaf, voluntarily inarticulated growl, against pain. Among the echoes by the name of Karsh, it was probably necessary to also hear that of “trash”.

Since his screening at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2024, he said he was everywhere that The shrouds would be a mourning film. It may be that, if mourning means overcoming suffering and trauma, this is exactly the opposite. Dissonant and contradictory, a cry of rage without appeasement possible against pain.

The shrouds
By David Cronenberg
With Vincent Cassel, Diane Kruger, Guy Pearce, Sandrine Holt
Sessions
Duration: 1h59
Released April 30, 2025
Elora Bain

Elora Bain

I'm the editor-in-chief here at News Maven, and a proud Charlotte native with a deep love for local stories that carry national weight. I believe great journalism starts with listening — to people, to communities, to nuance. Whether I’m editing a political deep dive or writing about food culture in the South, I’m always chasing clarity, not clicks.