March 25, 1997

Sex and psychopathology have been seminal forces in David Cronenberg's work since his feature film debut, They Came From Within, in 1975. Cronenberg has a penchant for making films about the macabre effects of technology on the human condition (Videodrome and The Fly) and psychosexual dysfunction (Dead Ringers and M. Butterfly). Cronenberg delves into these subjects again in his latest controversial (again!) film based on J.G. Ballard's influential postmodern book Crash.

The story centers on the transformation of James Ballard (James Spader) and his wife Catherine (Deborah Kara Unger) - who already have unusual sexual inclinations - after he is involved in a fatal car accident. The couple, and other auto accident survivors (Holly Hunter and Rosanna Arquette), are irresistibly drawn into the sinister web of a charismatic visionary - Vaughan (Elias Koteas) - who facilitates their bizarre psychosexual addiction.

Sex, the rush of escaping death in car crashes and the resulting physical disfigurements are powerfully, and uncomfortably, conjoined. These characters drift about in an odd "pathological-ecstatic" altered state of consciousness. As surviving victims of auto accidents, they are simultaneously untethered from "normal" life and yet are driven to fulfill their strange compulsion.

I think Cronenberg succeeds because he is not out to titillate - that would be too simple. The story unfolds slowly and elliptically. The characters never seem to fully realize why they are compelled to do what they do; and as viewers, we don't even get a clue until a third of the film has played. The viewer gets some information about the characters' impulses, but not enough to allow a facile reading of their behavior or the film.

Cronenberg, aware of the volatility of the subject matter, keeps the film's structure simple. The acting is a sort of "reserved-minimalism." Remember Peter Weller's deadpan turn as Bill Lee in Cronenberg's Naked Lunch (1991)? Cronenberg also uses oblique camera angles during critical expository moments, as when Spader and Hunter share a car ride after their accident, to heighten the "emotional disaffection." It's almost as if Cronenberg (I think as an analogous technique to mimic Ballard's writing style) is trying to keep the viewer at arm's length.

Spader is "dead-on" as the impassive, yet fascinated, Ballard. Unger turns in one of the strangest and accomplished performances I've seen this year. All at once she is voraciously carnal, deeply disaffected, and tender (sans the tenderness, remarkably like Faye Dunaway in Sidney Lumet's Network). But Elias Koteas, as Vaughan, steals the show. I found his simultaneously repulsive and riveting portrayal of "the death angel-prophet of technological apocalypse" alone worth the price of admission.

Ray Gunn Virus A.k.a.: Ray Gunn Virus; Mr. Ray Gunn Virus, Sir; Shinygodhead; J. Alvarez; sometimes even old plain Jorge (go ahead say whore-hey) never mind George will do. Stuff he like to do someday: Make a living out of writing "junk and stuff" and going places and seeing things ... Other Articles I've Written