Crash

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Myself


Not the baffling 2004 oscar winner from Paul Haggis but the steamy and disturbing David Cronenberg film from 1996.

I'll be honest this one always confused me a little, having not read the J.G. Ballard novel. Cronenberg keeps the characters and actions very vague and poetic, it's very open to interpretation. Either that or I'm just not smart enough to pick up on everything. What I do know is there is a lot of sex and some strange car crash thrill seeking fetish stuff.

Howard shore music is unmistakable, with his long drones and increasing chord clusters but this time it's done with electric guitar, which is always jarring to my ears, I'm so used to it coming from the string ensemble in his music.

Deborah Kara Unger and James Spader, although they do great stuff here, they, along with most other characters are so closed off and subtle I find it hard to get a grip with their emotional states. Which is of course entirely the point, they are all so stunted emotionally they need to seek out more and more exotic and dangerous perverse thrills to get a rise, to feel anything. But this observational style also makes it hard to connect to anyone.

Elias Koteas is a stand out here, I find his the most fascinating character and one of the most enjoyable to watch.

As perverse and outrageous as a lot of the film is I actually find it overall to be very sad. It's a very dark look at obsession, addiction and an emotionally stunted and slightly masochistic mainframe. It's also very slow paced which is not a good thing for a film I have trouble connecting to.

Not my favourite Cronenberg film an certainly not for everybody. But seriously who, after being in a horrible car crash, wouldn't want to wake up with James Spader. He is awesome.