Bluesy and Trap Review

The FLicks

CRASH
Written and directed by David Cronenberg, based on the novel by J.G. Ballard, starring James Spader, Holly Hunter, Deborah Unger, Andreas Katsulas, Rosanna Arquette.

Trap: The motion picture and the automobile are both approximately the same age and it can be argued that no two inventions have done more to change the face of the modern world. They gave an unprecedented freedom to the mind and the body to experience places and things that most people had never before dreamed of. Perversely, however, they also have been profoundly alienating – the car sealed people in their own private metal cocoons, cut off from others, and made possible the suburb – the symbol of modern anomie, and a landscape arguably more friendly to cars than to people – and for some people the motion picture can come to seem more real than "real life" . It’s not surprising then, that the two have been closely associated for most of their existence – the car chase has been a staple of the cinema since the days of the Keystone Kops.
All of which brings us to the film CRASH, in which David Cronenberg, explores the erotic allure of the automobile to produce a profoundly disquieting study of the ways in which technology has shaped our world and our consciousness

Bluesy: Oh man, you made that sound so good. I want to see THAT movie you’re describing instead of the one I just saw, being CRASH.

The thing is, I really wanted to like this movie so much. I mean, just the fact that Turner didn’t want it released was enough to make me want to tout it as the best picture of the year… but I can’t honestly say I really enjoyed the film that much. Actually, I found myself rather bored after a while and… gasp… checking my watch. Yes, I got the point CRASH was so desperately trying to make… but I got it in the first 15 minutes. After that, it just seemed like a barrage of much of the same. What happens to people when sex isn’t about connection and passion anymore? Where are we going when people find their thrills from watching re-enactments of famous car crashes with people actually suffering real concussions as a result? How many times can we watch people having mindless, meaningless sex in automobiles before we get it?

I’ll give it to Cronenberg, this is an interesting and relevant point of view he and the author of the novel, J.G. Ballard share… something we should see, discuss, talk about at length even. And the style, or rather the tone of the film was as cold as the content… which I see as a positive… but ultimately, I can’t say the lack of storyline helped in my moviegoing experience. Nor did I like the fact that I found these people, not particularly compelling to spend time with and watch, since there wasn’t any real explanation or insight into why they were acting this way given to me. I admit, I like stuff explained every now and then… and I kept feeling like the book probably did this a hell of a lot more than the actual film. (Then again, I didn’t read the book, Trap, and you did).

Trap: Perhaps it’s a case of reality versus anticipation. Sex and car crashes have been with us since the dawn of cinema, and for many people represent the epitome of mindless exploitation. If the film had starred Sylvester Stallone, you would have known exactly what to expect.

Even having read the book, I suppose I was still expecting something different. It tells the story of a jaded yuppie couple, James and Catherine Ballard (Spader and Unger), now so bored with each other that foreplay consists of describing their respective affairs to each other. When James is injured in a head on collision with Dr. Helen Remington (Hunter) – a crash in which her husband is killed – they form a strange, psychic bond with her, and she introduces them to Vaughan (Katsulas) a renegade scientist who is a guru to a cult-like band of crash survivors who are sexually turned on by the experience, and even recreate famous car accidents as a bizarre Survival Research Laboratories-type performances (in one of the film’s wittier strokes, James Dean’s fatal collision is recreated as parody of the chicken-run in REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE).

Again, it sounds sensationalistic, but Cronenberg is after something very different. This is a film of moods and textures. The crashes are fast and brutal, over almost before they have a chance to register, and the sex is cold and perfunctory.

Cronenberg may be the most coldly cerebral filmmaker since Stanley Kubrick, but here he becomes almost lyrical over the erotic allure of technology – a woman’s breast "rhyming" visually with the fiberglass nacelle of an airplane engine as she makes love against it, the way the camera lovingly caresses the crumpled bumper of a crushed car, only to pause on the steam rising from the cracked radiator as though it were the smoke from a post-coital cigarette, and the oddly waif-like figure of Rosanna Arquette, propped up in a gothic-looking full body brace that seems half mediaeval torture device and half high-tech bondage gear. Cold and deliberately alienating as the film was, it was filled with dozens of images like these that have haunted my mind ever since.

Bluesy: Then again, maybe you’re just haunted. The "Dawn of Cinema?" Trap, you’ve outdone yourself. Well, I’m still a big Cronenberg fan (I absolutely loved THE DEAD ZONE, DEAD RINGERS, VIDEODROME, SCANNERS)… and Kubrick, well, he’s my hero. But I still think this was a movie full of promise, but ultimately lacking in delivery. Sure, it was chock full of neat-o interesting images (the close up on the smoking "post-coital" radiator was pretty cool), and a strong theme… but it just didn’t come together for me like it did for you.

Trap: But then, you’re from LA, anyway – maybe driving just isn’t as exotic for you. Although I admit to going into the film with a very different idea of what I was going to see than what I actually saw, I also figured Cronenberg wasn’t going to take the easy way out in translating Ballard’s world to the screen. Nevertheless, I think this is a difficult, complex and, dare I say, even visionary film.