Saint Laurent Rive Droite spotlights the visionary director’s most personal—and fashion-conscious—film to date.
By the Cultural Affairs Team
In the ever-tightening orbit between avant-garde cinema and high fashion, Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg has delivered a work that feels both intimately personal and culturally expansive. The Shrouds, which opened in U.S. theaters on April 18th and premieres in Canada today, continuing its global rollout.
The film follows Karsh, a grieving tech entrepreneur played by Vincent Cassel, a cemetery where mourners can watch their loved ones decompose in real time via a bespoke surveillance app. Refracted through a sterile, sculptural lens, Cronenberg’s horror here is at its most emotionally austere. Written after the death of his wife in 2017, The Shrouds is not autobiography, but its DNA carries the weight of real mourning.
"I think it's all delusional, frankly," Cronenberg recently told Variety when asked about the fetish for celluloid among some of his peers. A provocateur to the end, he embraces digital cinema not as compromise but as evolution. The same can be said of his aesthetic sensibility: Karsh, gaunt, cerebral, wrapped in monochrome layers—bears an uncanny resemblance to Cronenberg himself, a living embodiment of quiet minimalism. The look is striking, almost surgical: clean lines, grayscale palette, architectural tailoring. It’s no surprise that Saint Laurent took notice.
Anthony Vaccarello, Saint Laurent’s creative director, has deepened the house’s dialogue with cinema in recent years. This latest film is the most fully realized expression of that ambition to date. Produced in part by Saint Laurent Productions (Strange Way of Life by Pedro Almodóvar, Emilia Pérez by Jacques Audiard, Parthenope by Paolo Sorrentino, Phony Wars by Jean-Luc Godard, Lux Æterna by Gaspar Noé, A Night in Shanghai by Wong Kar-wai), the film exemplifies a new frontier for fashion’s involvement in storytelling—far beyond costume design, into the realms of authorship and ideology.
Further entwining these disciplines is Cronenberg’s appearance on the latest episode of Talks, the Saint Laurent Rive Droite podcast series hosted by French journalist Augustin Trapenard. Shot in stark black and white, the episode offers a rare glimpse into the director’s interior world, touching on mortality, technology, and the visceral realities of the body—recurring themes in his nearly six-decade career.
The Shrouds arrives in French cinemas on April 30th, concluding a transatlantic rollout that feels more like a cultural unveiling than a film release. For Cronenberg, grief becomes design. For Saint Laurent, film becomes fashion. And for the viewer, this rare collaboration offers a hauntingly beautiful meditation on the body, death, and the aesthetics of letting go.