eXistenZ

An early scene in eXistenZ finds game designer Allegra Geller, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, wandering around the parking lot of a country gas station, named Country Gas Station, funnily enough. As though investigating an alien world, she sniffs the petroleum, delights in kicking up dirt, and smiles with conspiratorial appreciation after tossing a stone at the gas tank and hearing the resultant clank. Upon first viewing, the viewer might wonder what this inconsequential scene is about, if anything. Only after the film has ended, when Cronenberg reveals that Allegra and others were playing a game called tranCendenZ all along, does it come together. Any gamer knows that seemingly banal actions take on new meaning when presented through an artificial lens. Shopping, sleeping, eating, performing chores, and all of those things that might seem tedious in everyday life become fascinating details to explore because they were designed for the player to experience. Games that feature massive open worlds or offer meticulous character customizations receive praise for their ability to replicate minor details and tasks that add to the overall realistic texture of the game world. The more inconsequential the specifics, the more convincing the illusion. In this scene, Allegra does something familiar for many gamers; she pauses her role in the game narrative to test how real her surroundings feel, relishing the attention that went into designing this virtual world. 

Like many of David Cronenberg’s films, eXistenZ is another in the Canadian auteur’s long line of vivid, wholly original visions about technology’s role in the human experience. His 1999 feature considers how reality and media are interconnected, with a comic self-referentiality that confronts the quirks in video games and cinema.

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