The Shrouds ★★

David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds comes seven years following the death of his wife Carolyn Zeifman. They were married for almost forty years. In a 1992 Esquire interview, Cronenberg described himself as an atheist, and stated his belief that there is no afterlife. This belief underlies The Shrouds, a challenging film from the Canadian auteur that looks at the process of grief following the death of a loved one.

Similar to Cronenberg, The Shrouds’ Karsh (Vincent Cassel) is a widower. He lost his wife Becca (Diana Kruger) to cancer. Being a businessman and innovator, Karsh invents GraveTech as a means for the living to maintain some connection to the deceased. The technology works by enclosing the deceased within a shroud that provides a live, 3D scan of the deceased’s corpse that is private and viewable only by the bereaved. Expectedly, this technology is regarded by some as perverse and is met with criticism. But to Karsh, the technology provides him with another means of connection to Becca even after she has passed. It can be interpreted as a way of prolonging a personal relationship with a loved one, particularly given Cronenberg’s lack of belief in the afterlife. It can also be seen as a denial of the finality of death.

A new technological capability within the shrouds is the ability to rotate the 3D image and zoom. This advancement leads Karsh to notice that there are growths present on his wife’s bones. He wonders what they are, whether they could have been a result of her cancer, or if there is something more insidious at play. As Karsh unpacks this mystery, The Shrouds provides exposition behind the technology used. It was developed by a Chinese company, Karsh assured that the company had no relations to the CCP. Yet Maury (Guy Pearce), Karsh’s ex-brother-in-law and savvy technologist, suggests that the CCP could leverage the relationship between the mourning and the deceased – specifically the app and mobile phone data of GraveTech’s customers – to spy on the West. After all, each of us is connected to the deceased at one point or another and represents a potential GraveTech customer. And each GraveTech customer provides the company with deeply personal data and imagery.

When select tombs are vandalized including Karsh’s wife’s, Karsh struggles to determine a suspect and a motive. GraveTech is controversial, and between the CCP, religious groups, protesters, and Dr. Eckler (a doctor who treated Becca in her final months who was also Becca’s ex-lover), Karsh isn’t sure who is the most likely to commit this act. Add in Becca’s sister Terry (Kruger) and her husband Maury encouraging Karsh to consider conspiracies, and Karsh is thoroughly stumped. The Shrouds emphasizes this unknown and fosters a sense of paranoia as Karsh is haunted by dreams of Becca that reference Dr. Eckler and it is revealed that Karsh is being spied on. Karsh finds himself over his head, and forces beyond his control – death, Dr. Eckler, the unknown vandals – weigh on him. While his character could be written and portrayed as relatable to audiences experiencing grief, Cronenberg and Cassel resist this in Karsh’s character. He is cold in demeanor, and his business interests (and if not that, his ambitions for profit) may be offputting. And when it is pointed out that Terry is an identical sister to Becca, you can imagine the salacious turn the film will take.

Though the premise of The Shrouds is an exploration of grief, the film is preoccupied in its exploration of surveillance and dysfunctional personal relationships. Even so, it examines these only at a surface level. The film is unfocused, arguably reflective of Karsh’s mental state, and may hold difficulty standing up to the director’s unrivaled technohorror films. It seems destined to find appeal in fringe audiences, potentially those who enjoyed Cronenberg’s cold, controversial Crash. Nonetheless, The Shrouds is a deeply personal film for Cronenberg and a darker exploration into the director’s preoccupations than we typically see from the auteur.