Kristen Stewart responds to people walking out of gory new horror film
Kristen Stewart and he Crimes of the Future co-star Lea Seydoux at the Cannes film festival. (China News Service via Getty/ Li Yang)
Kristen Stewart has responded after critics walked out of a screening of her gory new film Crimes of the Future at Cannes Film Festival.
Crimes of the Future, created by David Cronenberg (The Fly, Dead Ringers, eXistenZ), marks the director’s return to the science fiction horror for which he found fame.
The film is set in a dystopian future and centres around performance artist couple Saul and Caprice (Viggo Mortensen and Léa Seydoux), who grow organs and operate on themselves in front of a live audience.
Stewart plays an investigator for the National Organ Registry who becomes obsessed with the couple, and at one point declares: “Surgery is the new sex.”
Crimes of the Future contains so much blood and guts, including an autopsy of a child, that several critics walked out of the press screening last week at the Cannes Film Festival.
In an interview with Insider, the actor addressed the walkout: “Everyone loves to talk about how his movies are difficult to watch and it’s fun to talk about people walking out of Cannes screenings.
“But every single gaping, weird bruise in his movies, it makes my mouth open. You wanna lean in toward it. And it never repulses me ever. The way I feel, it is through really visceral desire and that’s the only reason we’re alive. We’re pleasure sacks.”
Despite the few critics who couldn’t stomach the film, it did receive a seven-minute standing ovation, according to Variety.
Kristen Stewart admitted to Insider that when she agreed to be in Crimes of the Future, she had “no idea” what it was about.
“I told [Cronenberg] I have no idea what this movie is about, but I’m so curious and maybe we can just figure it out,” she said.
“We, the actors, spent every single day after work being like, ‘What the f**k are we doing?’ But then I watched the movie last night and it was so crystal clear to me.
“It so exposing, and it does feel like you’re hacking up organs when you’re making something, and if it doesn’t feel that way it’s not worth it.”
Crimes of the Future will be released on Friday (3 June).
