SYN Takes MIFF: A Night In ‘The Shrouds’

Header Image via MIFF // Commonstate Media (2024)

There’s nothing I enjoy more than entering a film blind, with not a clue what I’m about to witness. This is exactly how I entered Melbourne Central Hoyts on a gloomy Friday night to witness David Cronenberg's newest creation The Shrouds, one of Miff’s 2024 headlining films.

Like any Miff screening, the atmosphere was unmatched, with hundreds of cinephiles crowding into the theatre, also slightly unsure what exactly they were about to see. The result... interesting to say the least.

Starring Vicent Cassel, along with a distinguished ensemble of Diane Kruger, Guy Pierce and Sandrine Holt, the film follows struggling widower Karsh, who invents an outlandish technology that allows individuals to monitor their loved one's corpses as they slowly decay within their graves. For Cronenberg, this is an extremely personal and relevant theme, due to the passing of his own wife back in 2017.

To call the film an ‘experience’ would be an understatement. It can only be described as a kind of journey, where not only was I unsure of where I would end up but had no idea where I had even started. A vague, confusing description I know, but that is exactly what this film was. It’s difficult to label it within a genre. With elements of horror, drama, science fiction and even comedy (whether this was intentional, I guess we’ll never know...). 

The first half of the film was promising, with just enough balance between an eccentric concept and an intriguing storyline to be satisfactory. However, as the film progressed, the slightly outlandish overtook the intrigue, creating a truly wild and puzzling experience for the entire cinema. Uncomfortable half chuckles only grew as the time passed, as we were all asking ourselves the exact same questions... are we supposed to be laughing? Where exactly could this possibly be going?

The one thing I can say for sure is that this one is not for the squeamish. In true Cronenberg style, the film experiments with body horror in interesting yet direful ways, causing verbal expressions of shock from the audience on multiple occasions.

Ultimately, the film was a puzzling yet somewhat enjoyable experience, mirroring the confusion that comes with its key theme of death, and wanting to be as close yet as far away from it as we can. It’s definitely not one for everyone, but worth a watch for fans of the slightly twisted.