.

As cold and flu season rears its ugly head, it’s natural that most people do whatever they can to avoid getting bedridden by a nasty virus. But what if you caught an illness from your favourite celebrity? Would you be so quick to start shotgunning Vitamin C or would you let it linger for a bit, allowing yourself to feel that much closer to a person you otherwise admire from afar? This is the question posed by Brandon Cronenberg in his debut feature film, Antiviral, which hits theatres on Friday.

In the world depicted in the film, the general public can purchase viruses harvested directly from famous people – both at legal clinics and on the black market. The truly devoted can even go to special butcher shops and get steaks made from celebrity fats cells which they can then cook up for dinner. It’s  celebrity consumption in its most chilling form.

Not surprisingly, the idea came to  Cronenberg while he was sick. “I was having this fever dream where I was obsessing over the physicality of illness and the fact that I had something in my body that had come from someone else’s body and how there seemed to be a weird intimacy to that connection. After I recovered I started thinking about a character who might think of disease that way, as an intimate thing. And then I started thinking about how a celebrity-obsessed fan might want Angelina Jolie’s cold as a way of connecting with her. That developed into an interesting metaphor for celebrity culture as it exists now.”

Back in September,  Antiviral premiered at the Toronto International Film  Festival, which has received criticism in the past  for the way it courts Hollywood and  celebrates its  star-studded red carpets, an irony that hasn’t escaped Cronenberg. He hopes that Toronto audiences who are used navigating the glitter-caked craziness each fall will use his film as a way  examine their own consumption of celebrity, “TIFF  (was) a great place to have that discussion.  The film’s  critical of that culture to a certain extent but I think it’s also an exploration of it. I guess I was hoping that caricaturing that culture counteracts our habituation to it a little bit. It might create a certain perspective or it might start an interesting discussion.”

Another aspect of Antiviral that’s causing a lot of discussion has less to do with the film and more with Cronenberg’s famous Dad, “It’s a double-edged sword,” he admits.  ”People are more interested in what I’m doing because of my name and frame my work in the context of my Father’s career but the reaction to that really varies. Some people don’t care, some people give me undue respect and some people have undue contempt for me. But there’s nothing I can really do about it. You are who you are.”

Many other filmmakers have proudly proclaimed being influenced by David Cronenberg’s unforgettable and often visceral films but despite growing up on his Dad’s sets, Brandon shied away from film to avoid comparison to a man who casts a long shadow where movies are concerned. Instead Cronenberg’s path to filmmaking was a circuitous one that included forays into writing, visual arts and music, until he realized that “being annoyed by peoples’ preconceptions’” shouldn’t be a barrier to him participating in an artform that  ”seemed like a good way to collect my scattered creative interests into one art form that I could focus on and spend my life trying to get better at.”  So he headed to  film school at Ryerson University, where Antiviral was born.

Despite a lot of international interest in the next generation of  the Cronenberg dynasty, Brandon is more than happy to continue working in Toronto, a city he considers an asset to young filmmakers: “I think it strikes a good balance between big enough that we have access to tons of great things culturally and small enough that it’s not an oppressive place to live. It’s also possible to make films here and have access to a lot of  good equipment and people and talent but everyone still knows each other and there’s still a small community feel. All around it’s a pretty great city to  make movies  in.”

Antiviral opens in theatres on Friday, October 12, 2012.

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Kristal Cooper

Editor-in-Chief

Kristal Cooper has been a film buff since the age of two when her parents began sneaking her into the drive-in every weekend. Since then, she’s pursued that passion by working for the Toronto International Film Festival and the Canadian Film Centre as well as spending many a happy hour inside Toronto’s wonderful theatres (she still mourns the loss of The Uptown). She currently acts as Toronto Film Scene’s Editor-in-Chief, is a freelance writer specializing in pop culture and feminist issues, and continues to slog away at her day job as a small cog in the giant machinery of the Toronto film community.

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