Crash (1996)As each thrill loses its flavor, it compels increasingly intense replacements. For the reckless, these fetishes become dangerous and even deadly. Film producer James Ballard (James Spader) accidentally causes a deadly car accident, killing the husband of Dr. Helen Remington (Holly Hunter), injuring her as well. James subsequently discovers that the incident awakens a newfound urge within him (and Helen) that replaces the growing sexual apathy between him and his wife, Catherine (Deborah Kara Unger). After James and Helen fall in with a zealous crash enthusiast named Vaughan (Elias Koteas), their kink escalates into a full-blown obsession that threatens to destroy them all.
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Crash (1996) is a psychological thriller that explores the destructive impulses of a group of sex addicts who become aroused at car crashes, and the spiritual vacuum that widens as they sink ever deeper into the widening gyre of their twisted fantasies. Crash is filled with copious sex scenes--truly earning its NC-17 rating. Despite the erotic way these scenes are shot, the film rapidly becomes "anti-erotic", as the conditions for release become increasingly violent and even life-threatening. Sex is a pervading force in Crash, although love is nowhere to be found. James and Catherine have an "open relationship", and describe their extramarital escapades to one another not out of jealousy or anger, but because they have become so numb to the exhilaration of lovemaking that they have to keep pushing the envelope to achieve gratification. There is also an almost complete moral ambivalence to Crash, as if the main characters are already transitioning into death--at least a death of the soul. (The only exception to this is when Helen first sees James at the hospital, and appears enraged for a brief moment because he caused the death of her husband.) There is an uncomfortable indifference to this wealthy and attractive couple, who keep cool and detached exteriors as they speak in emotionless voices. They have become so inured to sex that it takes the bloody aftermath of James's accident to turn them on--Catherine reads the details to James while stroking him, as if she were reciting a steamy passage from a romance novel. The car crash alters James's perception of the world; after an awkward reunion at the impound between James and Helen, he gives her a ride to the airport, and they comment about a notable increase in the amount of traffic. The traffic in Crash becomes an emblem for James, Helen, and the others' wellspring of arousal, as if the roads were now a newfound sexual playground. As this thrill subsides, the amount of traffic also withers away; this underscores the inherent paradox in needing increasingly dangerous thrills to reach satisfaction--sooner or later, nothing will ever be enough.
Written and directed by David Cronenberg, Crash shares several key motifs from the filmmaker's body of work, not least of which is the merging flesh and machine into a hybrid lifeform; Vaughan "project" that consumes his energies is a nod to this. After James's irresponsible accident, his leg is enmeshed in a brutal-looking steel cast--a nigh-robotic component that catches Vaughan's eye at the hospital. The violent car crashes Vaughan catalogs as he drives around are a collision of man and machine, and those he stages have a ritualistic quality to them, like the Eucharist. Vaughan transmutes the vestigial legacies of car wrecks that took the lives of actors like James Dean into a mystical communion with a higher power, passionately espousing his self-appointed gospel and converting the faithful to his cause. Vaughan's apostles include his sensual version of a Frankenstein's monster, Gabrielle (Rosanna Arquette), who was so smashed up in an accident that she has to wear complex leg braces which house marijuana joints in a secret compartment. Her prosthetic regalia has a fetishistic component to it, at times resembling the black thigh high boots of a dominatrix. Even though Crash is a psychological thriller, Vaughan could not properly be described as a "villain"; he is an antagonist by definition, since his personality inspires others to identify with his insane obsession--substituting self-destruction for sexual gratification. Helen briefly alludes to Vaughan's past; considering his substantial scars and persistent wild eyed look, it's clear that he's been damaged at some point, and never received the psychological care he apparently needed. He even describes the scientific discipline behind his crusade as "psychopathology"--an ironic phrasing given his damaging compulsions.
Crash depicts its characters' fetish about cars--culminating in the eponymous crash that is a metaphor for sexual climax--as an inevitability for a mind warped from seeking pleasure through increasingly aberrant means. James and Catherine are introduced as an extremely kinky couple; it is not too far of a stretch for a couple like them to engage in such bizarre entertainment in their ennui. Helen is more of a surprise, and little is known of her before James kills her husband. Helen has a bit of a fetishistic quality to her; she is always wearing leather gloves and is straight-laced and immaculately dressed--the model of a BDSM enthusiast with a strong bent toward the "discipline" component. There is a moment immediately after the first crash where Helen attempts to remove her seatbelt, and inadvertently tears open her blouse, revealing her bare breast to James. Whether this act was intentional or not remains unanswered, but after they are reunited--and James almost causes yet another accident at roughly the same spot on the freeway as the first--they engage in a heated tryst at the airport garage. Was James the one who fanned the flames of her desires, or was it the other way around? When James sees Helen again at the hospital, Vaughan is with her; it later becomes clear that it was Helen who brought James and Vaughan together, suggesting that Vaughan was responsible for stimulating her appetite for deviant sex as a means of coping with her grief for her husband. When the clan of crash enthusiasts are in the apartment of Vaughan's collaborator, Colin Seagrave (Peter MacNeill), he is putting on a padded bra and blonde wig, preparing to stage the fatal car crash of Jayne Mansfield, while the others watch German crash videos on the VCR. As Seagrave rubs his exaggeratedly full brassiere, Helen appears on the verge of orgasm while the cars on TV prepare to collide, becoming flummoxed at the interrupted "coitus" as the tape deck gets stuck. Crash does not spend much time exploring Helen's damaged psyche, but this scene speaks volumes about how a well-educated doctor becomes a consumptive wreck after getting dragged down into the seductive undertow of Vaughan's fixation--a poor substitute to mend her broken heart. Despite the frequent sex scenes in Crash, there is never any sense of real joy or fulfillment. Howard Shore's woeful, guitar-infused musical score adds to the pervading sense of longing and unfulfilled needs. James, Catherine, Helen, and even Vaughan all act on compulsion more than pleasure, and because of this, they are victims of their own uncontrolled urges as much as everyone else who gets caught in their tangled web.
Recommended for: Fans of a psychologically complex drama that is dark, disturbing, and undermines the definition of eroticism by pairing it with an escalation of self-destruction. Crash is for mature audiences to be sure; it is not meant to titillate, but instead force the audience to examine their own fixations and the dangers that come from allowing unchecked desires to turn into compulsions.
Written and directed by David Cronenberg, Crash shares several key motifs from the filmmaker's body of work, not least of which is the merging flesh and machine into a hybrid lifeform; Vaughan "project" that consumes his energies is a nod to this. After James's irresponsible accident, his leg is enmeshed in a brutal-looking steel cast--a nigh-robotic component that catches Vaughan's eye at the hospital. The violent car crashes Vaughan catalogs as he drives around are a collision of man and machine, and those he stages have a ritualistic quality to them, like the Eucharist. Vaughan transmutes the vestigial legacies of car wrecks that took the lives of actors like James Dean into a mystical communion with a higher power, passionately espousing his self-appointed gospel and converting the faithful to his cause. Vaughan's apostles include his sensual version of a Frankenstein's monster, Gabrielle (Rosanna Arquette), who was so smashed up in an accident that she has to wear complex leg braces which house marijuana joints in a secret compartment. Her prosthetic regalia has a fetishistic component to it, at times resembling the black thigh high boots of a dominatrix. Even though Crash is a psychological thriller, Vaughan could not properly be described as a "villain"; he is an antagonist by definition, since his personality inspires others to identify with his insane obsession--substituting self-destruction for sexual gratification. Helen briefly alludes to Vaughan's past; considering his substantial scars and persistent wild eyed look, it's clear that he's been damaged at some point, and never received the psychological care he apparently needed. He even describes the scientific discipline behind his crusade as "psychopathology"--an ironic phrasing given his damaging compulsions.
Crash depicts its characters' fetish about cars--culminating in the eponymous crash that is a metaphor for sexual climax--as an inevitability for a mind warped from seeking pleasure through increasingly aberrant means. James and Catherine are introduced as an extremely kinky couple; it is not too far of a stretch for a couple like them to engage in such bizarre entertainment in their ennui. Helen is more of a surprise, and little is known of her before James kills her husband. Helen has a bit of a fetishistic quality to her; she is always wearing leather gloves and is straight-laced and immaculately dressed--the model of a BDSM enthusiast with a strong bent toward the "discipline" component. There is a moment immediately after the first crash where Helen attempts to remove her seatbelt, and inadvertently tears open her blouse, revealing her bare breast to James. Whether this act was intentional or not remains unanswered, but after they are reunited--and James almost causes yet another accident at roughly the same spot on the freeway as the first--they engage in a heated tryst at the airport garage. Was James the one who fanned the flames of her desires, or was it the other way around? When James sees Helen again at the hospital, Vaughan is with her; it later becomes clear that it was Helen who brought James and Vaughan together, suggesting that Vaughan was responsible for stimulating her appetite for deviant sex as a means of coping with her grief for her husband. When the clan of crash enthusiasts are in the apartment of Vaughan's collaborator, Colin Seagrave (Peter MacNeill), he is putting on a padded bra and blonde wig, preparing to stage the fatal car crash of Jayne Mansfield, while the others watch German crash videos on the VCR. As Seagrave rubs his exaggeratedly full brassiere, Helen appears on the verge of orgasm while the cars on TV prepare to collide, becoming flummoxed at the interrupted "coitus" as the tape deck gets stuck. Crash does not spend much time exploring Helen's damaged psyche, but this scene speaks volumes about how a well-educated doctor becomes a consumptive wreck after getting dragged down into the seductive undertow of Vaughan's fixation--a poor substitute to mend her broken heart. Despite the frequent sex scenes in Crash, there is never any sense of real joy or fulfillment. Howard Shore's woeful, guitar-infused musical score adds to the pervading sense of longing and unfulfilled needs. James, Catherine, Helen, and even Vaughan all act on compulsion more than pleasure, and because of this, they are victims of their own uncontrolled urges as much as everyone else who gets caught in their tangled web.
Recommended for: Fans of a psychologically complex drama that is dark, disturbing, and undermines the definition of eroticism by pairing it with an escalation of self-destruction. Crash is for mature audiences to be sure; it is not meant to titillate, but instead force the audience to examine their own fixations and the dangers that come from allowing unchecked desires to turn into compulsions.