CANNES, France – ‘Sex and violence have always gone together like bacon and eggs,” said David Cronenberg at the press conference for his latest film, “A History of Violence.” As metaphors go, this was pretty mellow coming from a man who has made movies about venereal sex slugs, armpit parasites, horny biotech mutations, and the pathological eroticism of car crashes.

As you might guess from the title, “A History of Violence” isn’t exactly benign, but it may be the most accessible film by the great Canadian auteur since 1983’s “The Dead Zone.” There is a recognizable genre (several, in fact), a strictly linear narrative (albeit a marvelously multivalent one), and a couple of big movie stars, who achieve the finest work of their careers. Three joined their director in Cannes to talk to the press.

Viggo Mortensen stars as Tom Stall, a quiet family man who runs the local diner in Millbrook, Ind. Maria Bello plays Edie Stall, lawyer and mother of Tom’s two children (Ashton Holmes makes a career-launching debut as their teenage son, Jack). After foiling an attempted rape, robbery, and murder in his diner, Tom becomes a local media hero, drawing the attention of some unsavory city folk. A disfigured Irish gangster (Ed Harris as Carl Fogarty) shows up, convinced that the small-town Joe is a former nemesis named Joey.

Tom’s alarming command of violence plants a seed of suspicion in alert viewers. Fogarty nourishes these doubts with his implacable, frightening conviction. Tensions mount to a showdown on the Stall family’s front lawn, with all the iconography suggesting a classic Western: Standing on his porch with a shotgun in hand, our hero must protect his family from what Josh Olson’s screenplay (adapted from a graphic novel) more than once refers to as “the bad guys.”

“This is a very American story,” Mr. Cronenberg explained, “which of course made it perfect to be shot in Canada.” And so it is – as processed by the most precise and penetrating sensibility in contemporary cinema. “A History of Violence” has stunned the American critics at Cannes, and immediately secured itself a berth at the upcoming New York Film Festival.

It will prove interesting to see how the international press responds. The French have long heralded Mr. Cronenberg as a master, and “A History of Violence” is now considered on the short list for the Palme d’Or (Michael Haneke’s thematically and formally similar “Hidden” is thought to be the front-runner.)

The inventors of la politique des auters will surely recognize one of the most elegant aspects of the film: its intricate use and subversion of genre. Most recognizable as a psychological thriller with elements of dark comedy, “A History of Violence” draws on the energies of the Western, gangster, and film noir modes in bold and unusual ways. Who would ever have thought a Cronenberg film could bring to mind John Ford, Howard Hawks, Nicholas Ray, and Fritz Lang?

I’ve tread carefully through the booby-trapped narrative of “A History of Violence” to avoid detonating its secrets and surprises. Suffice it to say that everything pivots on the question of Tom Stall’s identity, and we’re not as far as it might seem from the territory of “Videodrome,” “Dead Ringers,” and “Spider.” From the sex slugs of “Shivers” to the virulent virtual realities of “eXistenZ,” Mr. Cronenberg has spent a lifetime exploring the murkiest nooks of human consciousness with fearless audacity. Like much of his best work, “A History of Violence” is the story of one man’s head trip – but Tom Stall, c’est nous.

Like so many of the artists with films at Cannes this year, Mr. Cronenberg is addressing a cultural and political atmosphere rank with deception and phony official narratives. In these parts, in these times, I wouldn’t be surprised if “Manderlay” is mistaken for the more “relevant” commentary on America. But aside from the exhaustion of its formal gimmickry, Lars von Trier’s would-be critique of our past (slavery) and present (Iraq) comes off as petulant and listless. He lacks Mr. Cronenberg’s awareness that in order “to say something universally true you have to be specific.”

I’ll return to the festival-wide theme of secrets and lies in a later column – after I’ve seen Mr. Cronenberg’s masterpiece as many times as the programming will permit. For now, a prediction I’m willing to stake my press pass on: There may be greatness in store over the final stretch of the Cannes Film Festival – the latest by Hou Hsaio-Hsien is on its way – but a better movie than “A History of Violence” isn’t likely to open anywhere all year.