Crash

Soon after a head on car crash James Ballard (Spader) is introduced to a world of fetishists who find arousal in mixing raw sexuality, the mangling of human bodies, and the twisted steel of a fresh auto accident. Their fetish soon becomes a suicidal obsession with death and the ultimate pleasure.

Based on the novel by J. G. Ballard, Crash was one of most controversial movies of the 1990's. Exploring the psyche of those who extract pleasure through risk and eroticism through automobile accidents. James and Catherine Ballard are a married couple whose sex life has been reduced to recounting tales of mutual infidelity to turn each other on. James is eventually involved in a car accident that leaves one man dead. After his long rehab he meets the other survivor of the crash Helen (Hunter). They soon realize that the accident was the biggest turn on of their lives. Helen introduces James to a group, led by Vaughn (Koteas) who share in their fetish. To up the ante the group engage in more and more dangerous accidents to heighten their own arousal.  

Anyone familiar with director David Cronenberg's work should know what to expect from this movie, only here it seems that Cronenberg has license to go as far as possible with the message he was trying to get across about the human animal and our twisted psyche when it comes to what we find erotic. His experiment with Crash was met with much controversy at the time of it's initial release in 1996. While many will find the film repulsive and/or sick, I happen to find it a rather genius character study. A film that succeeds in challenging the viewer by showing them a different side of the human spirit and hopefully pointing out their own sick little perversions. One thing is for sure, whether or not you "like" the movie you have to admire the balls it took to make such an anti-Hollywood film that went against everything "politically correct." What's sad is that a challenging, though provoking film like Crash couldn't be made today and if it were the people making it would most likely be jailed. 
 
Cronenberg injects the film with a dreamy, trance-like quality that sucked me in from second one. That along with the low key score created a menacing atmosphere. The acting from the always brilliant James Spader is top-notch as always. Elias Koteas is one of the most underrated actors out there, he's brilliant here as well. Holly Hunter and the lovely Deborah Unger are also strong in supporting roles. This is what happens when a great script (written by Cronenberg), a great director, and great actors merge to create a truly original and daring film.

Much can be said about Crash, but the bottom line is: GO SEE IT! Rent the NC-17 version if your video store has it and explore this movie with an open mind. Whether you love it or hate it, Crash will challenge, make you think, and hopefully enlighten. Now days when crap films are recycled over and over like a commercially friendly PG-13 pop can, it was great to see a film that didn't treat the viewer like an idiot. Check it out! 

No, there are no limits to human stupidity. I don't know where to begin...Crash opens up like an after-dark Cinemax movie (which made me cringe). However it foreshadows the promise of a strange sensuality between metal and skin, something that James Ballard and Remington slowly find it as a kindling to stir up actual emotions to their boring, orgasm-less sex lives. Ballard meets Vaughan (played by Koteas) and he descends into the strange, twisted and druggie like world of Crash. Koteas is the real star of the movie here...James Spader and Holly Hunter merely serve as vehicles of boredom and a sense of being lost, finally finding what's missing in the oddest of places, while Koteas really drives the point across, really gives you an idea of what this underworld is like. He's slimy, creepy and insane, yet plausible.

This movie is not for everyone. There are a heavy amount of explicit sex scenes--and I only use the word explicit when I mean explicit. These scenes aren't porn. You watch these scenes, and they add to the mood. They add to a creepy, dirty feeling that's set on you from the beginning of the movie. And that's where Crash takes place...in the underworld. These scenes are done to enforce the mood. It's eerie. If there's one bad thing to say about Crash is that you'll go through over an hour and a half without hardly cracking a smile...and if you do, it's probably because the movie feels so good at parts that you just can't help yourself. This movie is far, far, far away from being trash. Everyone has their own opinion. Some opinions are just plain wrong.

I read J.G. Ballard's novel upon which this film is based. I am an avid reader of all sorts of novels and very open-minded, but this book put me off. There were vivid and disturbing images aplenty and little else but manifest self destruction. The utter tawdriness of the novel was so depressing and off-putting, I felt as if I needed a shower after reading it. Cronenberg's movie is reasonably true to the novel -- and that is no doubt the film's undoing. Pairing sex and violent car crashes as a metaphor for mankind's descent into a technological abyss is a good premise. It has the power of instant recognition. (...)? Hoo boy, let's make a movie! The problem is that Cronenberg's execution of this metaphor lacks true resonance. The characters are simply not believable, unless Canada has been completely taken over by zombies. They are fun to look at (good looking zombies!), but they are reduced to being just handy puppets for the Big Message. Don't get me wrong, the actors do a fine job of heroically slogging through this preachy and obvious movie. They do their level best to give Cronenberg just the right tone. Spader is particularly good giving the right tone. He looks bemused and ever so detached, as if he were doing a Christopher Walken impersonation. But one cares not a penny farthing for his character as James Ballard. On the other hand, the female roles as played by Unger, Hunter and Arquette are more compelling than the men's, and one just might conceivably care a little about them. The women actors seem slyly delighted at being cast by the boys in a techno-porn movie. (...) Having said that, is the joke on the men who dreamed up this silly movie, and are the women actors laughing at them? To sum up I wish someone else had written the premise and screenplay, and I wish there was more screen time given to Holly Hunter and Rosanna Arquette. Toward the end of the movie we see them embracing and kissing in the backseat of a wrecked car. There is a sweetness and tenderness in that brief moment that almost makes up for all the dreck that came before.