CRASH
A film review by Marty Cassady
Copyright 1997 Marty Cassady
AUTO-EROTICA (or, a new meaning to the term "sex drive")
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Let's get a couple of things out of the way:
1. Cars are sexy. We've been told for decades by Madison Avenue (at least, those of us who are male have been told) that a hot car is a "chick magnet", and there's not a complete absence of truth in that. I used to have a white 1976 Camaro, and it was gorgeous. I washed it almost every day. A female friend once told me it was "an extension of my penis", and there wasn't a complete absence of truth in that statement, either.
2. Lots of us have had some sort of sexual experience in a car. If not intercourse, then at least heavy petting or hand-holding or just riding around with somebody you're really hot for. Vehicle interiors are very cozy, intimate places, and being in one with an attractive person is undeniably erotic.
Now: considering the above, and considering the increasingly bizarre practices people engage in nowadays to achieve sexual gratification, is it really that big a jump from the idea of cars being sexy to that of car crashes being sexy? Is it really that hard to imagine that out there, somewhere, is a group of people who have married that notion to the darker realm of sado-masochism, and who are irrepressiby aroused by not just viewing car wrecks, but actually participating in them?
Certainly not in the imaginative netherworld of Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg, who for twenty years has explored the transformation of the human body into things mystical and/or horrific with movies like "Videodrom", "Scanners", "Dead Ringers", "The Fly" and "The Dead Zone." Only Cronenberg could possibly take on J.G. Ballard's 1973 cult novel about a clique of car-crash fetishists. Remember, this is the man who filmed the "unfilmable" novel "Naked Lunch", adding his own shadowy vision to William S. Burroughs' vaulting hallucinations. Cronenberg's "Crash" evokes utterly alien feelings. This film is a careening drive down a road you've never traveled (and may not want to again.) It's as bold a film as American audiences have ever seen; a film that won a special prize from the Cannes festival "for daring and audacity"; that has inspired controversy since even before its debut, and that fully deserves its NC17 rating.
The protagonist of "Crash" is James Ballard (James Spader), an adult-film producer who is married to the icily beautiful and bored Catherine (Deborah Unger.) The Ballards' sex life is already unusual; they each engage in affairs and report back to one another while in their own bed. One day, James loses control of his car near the Toronto airport, and rams head-on into a vehicle carrying Dr. Helen Remington (Holly Hunter) and her husband, who is killed. James and Helen formally meet each other in the hospital, and James is introduced to Helen's new friend Vaughan (Elias Koteas.) Vaughan's face is scarred and he walks with a limp - all the result of his frightening hobby of staging car crashes for his own pleasure and that of his fellow fetishists (including his girlfriend, played by Rosanna Arquette in one of the more disturbing combinations of costume and makeup that we've seen in recent memory.)
James and Helen soon begin an affair, centered around their newly discovered, twisted passion for automobiles. Catherine, in turn, is fascinated by Vaughan, and her desire turns toward the dark places he explores. All four become totally obsessed, and are led into increasingly reckless and dangerous behavior in search of the ultimate experience. A warning to more "sensitive" viewers: if you are the slightest bit timid about onscreen sex, then "Crash" is not for you. The sex in this film is explicit and almost constant throughout, and features the principal characters in almost every possible combination. To show anything less would be to fail to do the story justice, for sex is what these people are about. It's what drives (no pun intended) them, and what makes them who they are.
Like most of Cronenberg's films, "Crash" is far more than the sum of its parts. The performances are uniformly restrained, even Koteas' turn as the squirrelly Vaughan. The tone is grayish and the lighting dim; there's not a ray of sunshine in the whole thing (nor should there be.) It's an astounding piece of work, in more ways than one, and, like it or not, probably Cronenberg's best. At the screening I attended, "Crash" generated as noticeable an audience response as anything I've recently seen, ranging from nervous chatter and tittering to uneasy laughter, groans and outright shock. It's more than just a mind-blowing story of people pushing the limits of human experience: it's itself an experience, that seriously stretches the boundaries to (and beyond) which the film medium is willing to go. If you feel like stretching your own limits, then get behind the wheel and head out to see "Crash." Drive carefully, if that's what turns you on.
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Marty's Official Recommendations (TM): - Highly recommended to adventurous viewers and David Cronenberg fans - Recommended with strong reservations to the general moviegoer - Not recommended to those likely to be offended by onscreen sex
CRASH. From Fine Line Features. Directed by David Cronenberg. Starring James Spader, Holly Hunter, Deborah Unger, Elias Koteas, Rosanna Arquette. Written by David Cronenberg, based on the novel by J.G. Ballard. Running time: 100 minutes. Rated NC17 for language, car-crash violence and numerous explicit sex scenes.
This review copyright 1997 by Marty Cassady. Mat redistribute freely in cyberspace if not altered.
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