<IMG SRC="graphics/crash.jpg" ALIGN="RIGHT">Asleep at the wheel
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Any film which has claims to explore the erotic possibilities of car-crashes can expect a rough ride in the media. True to form, Crash was denounced by foaming-mouthed MPs and columnists united by both righteous indignation and having never seen the film. Given the hype and Cronenbourg's track record, which includes such queasy delights as Dead Ringers and The Naked Lunch, expectations of a traumatic ride through blood, mucous, death, sex, mucous, mutilation and more mucous were high. Readers of JG Ballards scintillating original novel will have wondered how the techno-genital nightmare of this early '70s masterpiece could ever be brought to the screen.
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Unfortunately the film falls far short of these expectations. The main danger is of falling asleep and drooling on your neighbours shoulder, rather than charging out into the night and driving down the wrong side of the motorway with your trousers round your ankles.
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The cast sleepwalk through a script shorn of Ballard's deadpan wit (maybe Cronenbourg, who is not noted for his sense of ironey, simply didn't notice it), and actually contains far less car crashes than The Blues Brothers, which made a far more effective fist of fetishising mororised mayhem.
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Part of the problem is that car crashes simply aren't that erotic: Ballard's novel succeeds because it fixes your attention like the crazed monologue of a Tube psychotic. Cronenbourg's style is cool to the point of being frozen and the film's languid pace allows your attention to wander, until you start to think: why don't these people just go home and have sex with each other instead of romping around in car parks? They're not teenagers, after all.
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Shifting the film's location from England to Canada doesn't help: behavour that seems radically perverse in the commuter hinterlands around Heathrow simply fails to astonish in the context of North America's sprawling freeways.
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But ultimately the film has missed its moment: in the two decades since Crash was published, attitudes to cars have changed, even reached a watershed. Road rage and drive-by shootings have inured us to the idea of the roads as places of menace, and the fashionability of fetishism has taken bodily mutilation from the back street S&M club to the nose of your local supermarket cashier. Nor do we need warned about worshipping at the altar of technological progress. While road protesters burrow to undermine the whole automotive culture, cars have mutated from chrome dripping penile extensions into eco-friendly and safety conscious cuties
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So if you do decide to watch Crash, why not try ruining your companion's evening? As the credits roll then lean close to them and whisper: "Airbag".
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<STRONG>Reviewed by Mick James</STRONG><p>
Go to <A HREF="http://lucasfilm.com/" TARGET="main">the official site</A> for more information.<br>
Or check out the <A HREF="http://us.imdb.com" TARGET="main">Internet Movie Database</A>. <P>
