David Cronenberg lost his wife and the desire to make films. Then came “the shrouds”

In 2017, during the funeral of his wife and long -standing collaborator Carolyn Zeifman, the director David Cronenberg was struck by an unusual impulse: while the coffin holding his corpse was lowered in the ground, he wanted more than anything to enter this box with her.

This reluctance to let go is taken to even more morbid extremes in the new Cronenberg film, “The Shrouds”, about a high -tech cemetery where the continuous decomposition of a corpse can be seen through a video livestream intended for loved ones left behind. When these tombs are mysteriously vandalized, it is the owner of the Karsh cemetery (Vincent Cassel) to determine the culprits, who he suspects may have something to do with the death of his own wife (Diane Kruger).

Cronenberg, 82, has always been guided by a unique point of view as a filmmaker, and his classics like “Scanners”, “Videodrome” and “The Fly” helped establish the body genre. However, he admitted in an interview via Zoom this month that “Linces” could be considered as one of his most personal films: it is not for nothing that Cassel is costumed to resemble his director, by sticking dark costumes and teasing his gray hair up in a familiar manner.

Despite this, Cronenberg warned against the drawing too many links between him and his main character.

“As soon as you start writing a script, you write fiction, whatever its momentum in your own life,” said Cronenberg. “Suddenly, you create characters who need to come to life. And when you start writing them, they start to push you if they are really alive.”