The Return

The Return - 2003 - 105 minutes - Directed by Andrei Zvyagintsev
Starring Vladimir Garin, Ivan Dobronravov, Konstantin Lavronenko, Natalia Vdovina

Andrei Zvyagintsev's 2003 debut feature, The Return (alternatively known as Vozvrashcheniye), is about as painterly a film as has been produced in the last ten years, the director's affection for the environment bleeding through into every frame. This compelling and consistently striking imagery is made great use of thanks to the director's courageous fluidity with which he uses the camera, long sweeping shots melt into quick shaky ones, but we never get the sense that Zvyagintsev is afraid to try anything unconventional. On what has been reported as a shoestring budget (less than $500,000) Zvyagintsev released a haunting portrait of adulthood in Russia which is as effective as it might have been were its budget three times the size. The Return seems to be proud of its ability to become almost uncomfortably intimate, intruding on its protagonists' universe with ease and nonchalance, whether displaying an insignificant moment of childhood weakness or a seminal turning point in the movement towards adulthood, Zvyagintsev is willing to approach the subject matter from head on, never shying away from what may have been ignored in another --less intuitive-- director's hands.Ivan (Ivan Dobronravov) and Andrey (Vladimir Garin) are brothers who have suffered from a lack of discipline for as long as they can remember, the only patriarchal figure in their life is a dusty photograph of their father they keep hidden in a book in the attic. After a playful sequence in which Zvyagintsev allows us entry into the bond the two have constructed in place of a father, we watch as the younger brother Ivan is overcome by cowardice and finds himself unable to leap from a tower into the water causing his older brother Andrey to taunt him as a chicken. Ivan quickly stands up for himself, contending that he is hardly a coward for disliking heights, but his brother continues and so the two begin a physical altercation which ends with the pair racing for their mother, attempting to twist the fight to their own benefit. Upon arrival they realize that their father (Konstantin Lavronenko) has returned home after 12 years away. While their dad's mysterious past is a motivating factor for much of the conversation between the two children, it is proven irrelevant by the events of the following week.

After their first supper with their long lost relative, Dad offers to take them on a fishing trip. Their mother acquiesces to this request and the three set out promptly, their relationships almost immediately solidifying; Ivan is dismissive and hateful of his father, Andrey is openly submissive while their father clearly has some sort of alternative motive for taking them on the trip. Ivan's defiance becomes more and more prevalent and their father continually reacts poorly to it, leaving him behind on a small bridge for several hours when he complains about the lack of fishing on their trip. As the journey continues and the boys become more and more attached to their father, the dad becomes more demanding and irritated as the boys disobey what he deems to be easily understood orders. The long gap in which the father's absence became a more dominant figure than his presence ever could be is soon understood to be insurmountable as Andrey appears to latch onto the father, agreeing with almost everything he says and attempting to make him proud. Ivan, on the other hand, becomes more and more wary that the father will soon be on his way and that they are being exploited for unknown purposes, eventually threatening that if the father were to become violent he would happily commit murder.The Return is light on drama but well paced, the plot slowly emerging from the murky depths of oedipal impulses, contradictory emotions and hidden agendas as the boys attempt to understand the meaning of their father's reappearance. With slow, methodical and thoughtful cinematography from Mikhail Krichman, a man capable of making singular images both iconic and enigmatic, masterfully revealing inner conflict with little indication of external drama. Krichman is Zvyagintsev's most useful asset in the film, continually proving his worth by evoking the painterly landscapes we came to expect from the great Andrei Tarkovsky, albeit without the impressive patience that master constantly displayed. The combined strength of the cinematography and the direction is enough to push this film into the pantheon of contemplative cinema, slowly evoking the kind of simmering emotions that are ever-present yet never over the top.

Staggering at points, and at others quietly meditative, The Return is exactly the kind of film that Russia is renowned for producing. Audiences can expect to be impressed not only by the knowledgeable camerawork and the rigidly structured narrative, but also by the standout performance from Ivan Dobronravov as the youngest member of the family, his tortured psyche evident at all points but in a believable and childlike fashion. That his counterpart Vladimir Garin remains restrained in terms of the kind of provocative displays of emotion that Ivan often expresses is both an testament to Garin's abilities as a selfless actor, but also to Zvyagintsev's intuition in keeping their relationship lop-sided, making the film's violent climax that much more poignant and emotional. That, in the end, Ivan is the one who is really left in need of his father is revelatory, stripping his reserved facade and replacing it with the immediacy of an injured childhood.
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The Return at Amazon.

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans - 2009 - 121 minutes - Directed by Werner Herzog
Starring Nicholas Cage, Eva Mendes, Val Kilmer, Xzibit, Fairuza Balk, Michael Shannon, Brad Dourif, Jennifer Coolidge

Herzog is one of the most unlikely choices for director for the type of film Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans was originally positioned to be. His anachronistic style of filmmaking, coupled with his knack for getting uniquely disturbing performances from his actors has never been considered a perfect fit for a traditional crime thriller, especially one which was initially envisioned as a remake of the Catholic guilt fest that was the original Bad Lieutenant. But when Herzog is given free reign, even on something as ostensibly traditional as Bad Lieutenant, the results will almost always be compelling and original. In this case, the film turned out interesting on every possible level, from the powerhouse centerpiece performance from the bizarrely effective Nicholas Cage to the shocking narrative interruptions that Herzog indulges in, wherein he delves into a reptilian motif so thoroughly he sees fit to actually film a scene from a lizard's point of view. This diversion might seem haughty and pretentious in another director's film, but here it seems to fit because Herzog, well, he seems to actually just be interested in the reptiles.At the core of the film is a set of partnerships, each involving newly promoted Lieutenant Terence McDonagh (Nicholas Cage) in one way or another. The first is his partnership with fellow police officer and all around vicious human being Stevie Pruit (Val Kilmer), whose utterly sober and vicious side is so much more out of control and dangerous than the drugged out, selfish and motivated McDonagh's survival based violence. McDonagh, a man so wholly self-obsessed that his only interest in other people is what they can give him (or, primarily, what he can take from them), seems almost altruistic when juxtaposed against someone as primal and sadistic as Pruit. His relationship with Pruit is a relatively simple one in which both men attempt to do evil, but McDonagh holds back on the unmotivated, blind sadism of ruthless murder or lazy negligence. As he takes the position of figurehead within his partnership, so he does in his leadership of his family. His father, an admitted alcoholic who struggles from day to day to drag himself to AA meetings, gives off no real sense of power, but rather emits a kind of odd impotence, unable to maintain his dog's health during his transition to sobriety.

McDonagh's relationship with his prostitute/girlfriend Frankie (Eva Mendes) is the most fascinating of the movie, and it is the kind of push-pull dynamic that occurs in most, if not all, unhealthy relationships. They are both drug addicts, using eachother for drugs/protection and sex/a sense of responsibility respectively. Frankie's first words upon meeting with McDonagh are often related to his procuring of drugs, but this never sours him as he is an openly manipulative person, utilizing her occupation as a prostitute to supply him with a seemingly endless line of criminal low-lives on which to prey upon. When one of these events turns ugly and ends up with a powerful enemy demanding $50,000 from McDonagh, he quickly deposits Frankie with his father and his live-in girlfriend, a drunken hypocrite named Genevieve (Jennifer Coolidge). This intrusion of his current lifestyle, one where he openly does drugs, engages in ugly, harsh and exploitative sex on the street, and commonly blackmails people he respects, upon his childhood home where he admits he imagined entire worlds of utopian piracy, worlds where treasure was everywhere, even deep in the dirt in his backyard, where he finds a sterling silver spoon. This spoon is later discovered to not be silver, but to be old and rusted, in an effective portrait of lost innocence and the inherent corruption of the criminal.

Herzog's view of this rather pathetic abuser of power is one of empathy and indulgence, he is overjoyed when Terence threatens a gangster (Xzibit) and his bodyguard with death and then cackles loudly before intoning "Til the break of dawn, baby." These endearing touches enrich McDonagh's character and do much to explain his odd charisma despite his abusive nature. The fact that the film ends in a fashion which does little to resolve McDonagh's inner conflict but goes to great lengths to dispel his external ones, especially in a phantasmagoric sequence of events where every little thing seems to go McDonagh's way, alludes to a world where crime does pay, a twisted world where the criminals are systemically integral, and that the hallucinatory cowboy streak of McDonagh's is nothing compared to the sober exploitation of Pruit. This is an oppressively dark but funnily realized vision of contemporary society, seen through the eyes of one of cinema's most distinguished and notorious outsiders.As a cohesive whole, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is a well-oiled machine, each scene working towards the same ends even though it may be doing so in a thoughtful but erratic manner. The film is brilliant at times and simply entertaining in others, but Herzog never condescends to believe one is more important than the other. Herzog knows the power of entertainment, being a man who openly admits to watching wrestling, and his latest effort is another excellent entry in a devastating body of work. Featuring two small appearances from Fairuze Balk and Michael Shannon that are almost worth the price of admission alone, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans does well on every level large and thematic or small and experimental. In particular, the minuscule but nevertheless affecting performance by Michael Shannon as Mundt may be indicative of the quality of their next collaboration, the much anticipated My Son, My Son What Have Ye Done? but for now it serves to enhance an already intriguing and powerful film.
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Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans at IMDB.

I, Curmudgeon

I, Curmudgeon - 2004 - 94 minutes - Directed by Alan Zweig
Starring Alan Zweig, Harvey Pekar, Bruce La Bruce, Fran Lebowitz, Andrew Currie, Joe Queenan

I, Curmudgeon is structurally similar to the majority of partisan documentaries, from the floating heads passionately informing the masses on their point of view to the close ups of aged photographs while speaking of days gone by, its surface is hardly subversive in any manner. Apart from its presentation, however, the film is remarkably unique in content, as it takes an unfamiliar subject and approaches it through a mixture of humorous anecdotes, seemingly endless rants, and poignantly sad revelations. The topic is the negativity of the filmmaker Alan Zweig, and it is the second part of what he calls his 'mirror' trilogy, in which we frequently witness Zweig talking to the camera through his reflection in the mirror, camera and all. I, Curmudgeon tracks his journey to becoming a (slightly) more positive person, meanwhile exposing the convoluted existences of several other notable curmudgeons including the likes of comic icon Harvey Pekar, author and sardonic commentator Fran Lebowitz, movie critic Joe Queenan, filmmaker Andrew Currie and homosexual columnist, filmmaker, and porn star Bruce LaBruce. >The film is centered around a singular event in Zweig's social life in which he found himself at a party where a Nike commercial featuring William Burroughs was being discussed and regarded as 'cool', a reaction which he responded to with vitriol. This approximation's hyperbolic reaction caused several of the partygoers to comment on Zweig, expressing the opinion that "it's just a commercial." an idea that Zweig took to heart, perhaps too much so, while the interviewees tend to ridicule it. The Nike commercial is a fractured reflection of an earlier event in Zweig's life when he witnessed Bob Hope's old, lifeless material being delivered to the troops of Vietnam and Zweig came to realize that he was actually more upset at Hope's lack of originality or importance than at the war in general. "Though the big bad things in the world fuel my negativity here and there, the little bad things in the world are the true engine."

The film seems to be of some cathartic use for Zweig, but he is unable to pass on this therapeutic lesson to the others he speaks with, most of them having trapped themselves in their existences long ago. Alan never passes judgment on them, even the ones who refuse to exercise, watch their weight, watch their health, or even leave their homes due to an unfocused and unbridled disgust with almost all things man has encountered thus far. Most of these characters come off as both charismatic as well as lonely, separated from humanity due to their own uncompromising willingness to isolate themselves for the good of their well-being. And we come to see that those who are comfortable in their own microcosms appear healthy, unique, engaging individuals whose negativity is held at a distance, keeping them from truly being eaten away at by their philosophy. Others are miserable and unable to escape because of their utter remoteness, their complete separation from the joys of human existence. These are the people whose energy is focused on the minor inconveniences they suffer at the hands of other people, as one bemoans the use of jet skis and others pick apart commonly used phrases with no real meaning.Zweig, for the most part, is both compassionate and understanding towards his subjects, mostly because we can see the kinship he feels with them. Although he views his life as passing into the final of his transitory stages, one removed from negativity or at least from an obsession with the aforementioned negativity, we glean that the truth may be that this may not be a viable desire for a man of his vitriolic wit and candor. And worse yet, he enjoys the miserable comments and the snide remarks that make him stand out as an individual both for being bold and upfront but also for being clever and witty. His wit is matched throughout the film with several others' remarkable wits (Bruce LaBruce) while at least three of the remaining interviewees are more inclined to try and devalue everything that Zweig is attempting to hold onto (Harvey Pekar). In this way we are introduced to the dedication the curmudgeon feels for his obsessively pessimistic views and mannerisms, and we learn that this can be channelled in a plethora of different fashions.

The film itself is a joy to watch, sometimes excruciating as the loneliness of central figures comes through their speech and their helpless, dire gestures of almost complete and total submission. These moments of utter despair are contrasted with the generally upbeat tone of the film, and despite the subject matter Zweig has managed to produce a fairly positive, optimistic picture that neither sugarcoats existence nor shies away from the larger issues at hand. I, Curmudgeon acknowledges the predominant factors which lead to a curmudgeonly existence, but also includes the positive features of this lifestyle, refusing to kowtow to the general public's preconceptions about these loud-mouthed figures. The director's colloquial, friendly tone and open-ended questions make for great conversation starters and it seems he is able to keep every interviewee at ease throughout, questioning them gently and without rancor, yet still cutting to the bone of the issues he wants to deal with. Considering one of his earliest questions we can see how insightful a simple lead-in can be, the response being both comic and abrupt; "I don't mean this as like psycho analysis just how far back do you remember..."
"Hating everything?"Detailing the immense scale and "awfulness" of loneliness and "the godless universe", I, Curmudgeon makes a point of refusing to revel in misery for too long, allowing speakers to have moments of truth, humor, and insight without ever becoming preachy or dry. While dissecting entertainment in general one speaker mentions 'the fundamental human need to zone out,' and its responsibility for the way the general populace live their lives without passion. Unable to find a place amongst this majority, those who subscribe to this negative and questionable lifestyle sustain themselves through an unfaltering need to be individuals, decrying the hypocrisies and failings of our social order, even if they make no motion or effort to alter them. The consensus appears halfway through the film where it is revealed that the average human being is just 'waiting to die', and that therefore the human race is 'simply waiting to die.' This conclusion is in part arrived at by the documenting of those people who run solely on ambition, lives without purpose beyond pushing forward, and that the real difficulty of life is to lure humans away from their nature, out of their comfort zone. The analysis may seem pessimistic, and in a way it is, but Zweig's ingenious presenting of the material makes for an extraordinarily entertaining documentary, even if it is a tad on the conventional side in terms of aesthetics.———————————————————————————————-
I, Curmudgeon at IMDB.

The Man from London

The Man From London - 2007 - 133 minutes - Directed by Bela Tarr
Starring Miroslav Krobot, Tilda Swinton, Agi Szirtes, Janos Derzsi, Erika Bok, István Lénárt

Not since my beloved Damnation has Bela Tarr been able to make a film into such a brooding slow burn as he does here in The Man From London, his 2007 effort which returns to the obsessions and fascinations he first presented so eloquently in the aforementioned Damnation. Dwelling on subject matter he has previously dealt with such as the fragility of man and the effect criminal activity can have on the average citizen, The Man From London is unique in his purposeful extension of its narrative. Whereas in Damnation Tarr does well to leave the minimal plot as banal and simplistic as possible, here he ventures into a more complicated and traditional narrative. While this would harken a downward spiral for most directors, Tarr is able to balance the more conventional elements of his storytelling with the indefinable beauty of his previous, more experimental works.The Man From London is also one of Tarr's most visually dense efforts, its combination of chiaroscuro lighting and brutal if expansive settings making for a unique and inimitable backdrop for the compelling human drama he so effortlessly creates. The looming darkness of the absolute shadows Tarr utilizes so brilliantly alludes to a fatalistic turn of events, an oppressively dark and brooding chaos that invades the characters' routines and day-to-day rituals. Exhibiting the visceral and raw depiction of a relationship in decline as he had in The Prefab People, Tarr contrasts painful moments of shrill arguments with slow, calming scenes with little to no dialogue. Tarr's skillset runs the gamut of filmmaking and he makes use of every tool at hand to make for an entertaining but abrasive work of staggering conflict.

After witnessing a particularly violent if awkward altercation which leads to a murder at the dock where he works, Maloin (Miroslav Krobot) goes down to the water with a pole to drag the area. He retrieves a satchel of British Sterling currency which he promptly dries out and hides away. Seeing the money as an escape from a dreary and uneventful existence, Maloin is given cause to pull his daughter, Henriette (Erika Bok) from her job which he considers akin to slavery, where she cleans up like a servant and where any man can 'gawk at her arse.' Although this is an understandable choice and a justifiable one, his wife (Tilda Swinton) takes offense and protests his sudden decision to spend what she perceives to be all of their money and simultaneously ruin Henriette's chances at any other gainful employment by immediately and somewhat violently removing her from her occupation.Nerve wracking but never in a self aware way, The Man from London is completely antithetical to the thrills typical of Hitchcock and his ilk, never drawing attention to the tension, the fright, the anticipation of his rather cerebral exploration of the tempestuous events Maloin is a witness to and takes part of. Tarr is a master of achieving powerful results with minimal plotting, so while you find yourself drawn into the story it is difficult to pinpoint exactly why or what is keeping our interest so intently focused on the screen. Although Tarr's films hardly ever lend themselves to the selfish drama which accompanies most movie stars and their performances, The Man From London sees Tilda Swinton assimilated into his usual cast of peripheral characters quite nicely. While her reputation may draw our attention to her, she never appears to be encouraging this focus, instead choosing to rise with the material into a more universal, less transitory level of cinema. However, even amongst the star caliber of Swinton, the real standout here is lead actor Miroslav Krobot who paints a dreary portrait of a man exhausted with life, particularly with his living conditions. Krobot is able to give those slow, mournful moments in which Tarr maneuvers around his characters by tiny increments an added depth, one which is at times both striking and courageous. Krobot seems to be bearing his soul for us to see as he viciously argues with his wife, the threat of violence becoming more and more apparent as the conversations develop.

While Tarr may allow his characters and the situations they find themselves in to become frantic and chaotic, his camera never ventures into the same territory. With a skill unmatched in contemporary cinema, Tarr is able to steadily move the film along with little notice of the conventions which plague modern day film. This effect, which adds to Tarr's singularity as a filmmaker, is accentuated by the marked pacing and frequent close ups Tarr indulges in. Weather spattered satchels and faces are juxtaposed against their starkly lit and isolated environments to great effect which is beautifully shot by Tarr's astounding cinematographer Fred Kelemen. Often shooting in profile and in close up, Kelemen does excellent work with the characters who are so often communicating through gestures or expressions as opposed to action and dialogue. This is due to the lion's share of the actors playing resigned, weak willed and frightened people who are under the thumb of the sole aggressive character, the titular man from london, Morrison (István Lénárt) who uses his status as an English police inspector to influence all those he comes in contact with.Although the plot is, as is often the case with Tarr's work, deceptively simple, The Man from London is a remarkably dense and riveting film. We view so much of it through windows, filters and from great distances that we come to acknowledge the established distance between the criminals, Maloin, and the invading inspector not only in plot but also in aesthetic. This is such a well developed, plotted and composed film that it proves the power of silence, the power of minimalism, and the power of texture. The Man from London may not be Tarr's best film yet, but it is certainly worthy of its few accolades and a great many more. Never as personal nor as heartbreakingly poignant as Damnation or Werckmeister Harmonies, The Man from London is as visually sophisticated as any he has ever made, and is much more rooted in characters than in psychoses or townships. A beautiful film that is as inspiring as it is stunning, Tarr continues to impress upon us the values he holds in the highest esteem, and does so in an entertaining as well as layered fashion.———————————————————————————————-
The Man from London at Amazon.

Jennifer's Body

Jennifer's Body - 2009 - 102 minutes - Directed by Karyn Kusama
Starring Megan Fox, Amanda Seyfried, Johnny Simmons, Adam Brody, Kyle Gallner, J.K. Simmons

As indulgent as it is unremarkable, Jennifer's Body is yet another example of why blatant pandering is never a suitable option in cinema, especially early on in a career when a filmmaker hasn't quite found their style, so to speak. The film may have been filmed by the talented upstart Karyn Kusama, but it is consistently dogged by Cody's penchant for witticisms that are equal parts precious and self-consciously hip, and it is at her feet the lion's share of the blame falls. Like Juno, Jennifer's Body suffers from a glut of wankery, mind numbingly cute moments where people talk inorganically to one another as if they were computers designed to mention pop culture and breasts every 7-10 seconds. Being a vehicle for the as-yet-unproven Megan Fox, the film's blatant disregard for good taste can be easily mistaken as a treatise on femininity and sexuality, but I'm afraid those who are seeing this are reading far too much into a shallow and altogether trite little picture.

The film's saving grace is the undeniably decent performance from Amanda Seyfried, a youth unafraid to 'ugly herself up' and play square to the much more sexual and desirable Fox. While it is not entirely rare to have a female antagonist in a horror film --hell, horror films have been setting the bar pretty high for lady leads for a long time-- Jennifer's Body is unique in its situating its story entirely around strong female characters, which in turn introduces the premise that boys are helpless, thoughtless and untrustworthy. While this central conflict has immediate potential for subversion, this potential is left unrealized and throughout the film we are left with a false, artificial world where wit equates with crude references, and peripheral characters are left undeveloped not because of some conscious decision on the part of the filmmakers, but because it seems that Cody is completely unable to create realistic or even slightly believable characters.The high school setting clashes immediately with the tone which Cody and Kusama establish during the first portion of the film, what with the overt sexuality and single teacher/principal (played amusingly by J.K. Simmons) who presides over the classes with a blindly sympathetic approach. We are introduced to 'Needy' (Seyfried) through a hip, irreverent but strained voiceover that tries a little too hard to be ominous. Needy is a tough girl, violent and institutionalized for reasons that are about to become clear to us. Through flashback we're told that Needy's problems have something to do with the sexually active and extremely confident Jennifer (Fox), and that that something may have had to do with a terrible band called Low Shoulder that comes into town to play a gig. Jennifer drags Needy out of the arms of her clingy, sweet but dopey boyfriend Chip (Johnny Simmons) to the show only to have the bar burst into flames halfway through one of the most painful sets I've ever heard given the OK to be put on film.

It turns out that the fire was simply a ruse, a ruse that caused a whole bunch of people to die and all of that, but a ruse nonetheless in order to lure Jennifer out to the band's van, which they do by suggesting "Hey, do you want to check out our sweet van? It's safe, it's a safe place." It's at this point that Cody's hand begins to show, and wouldn't you know it? She doesn't even have a high card. The entire scene is awkward, poorly shot and overly elaborate for a straight-up kidnapping, especially when it's revealed that the purpose for this kidnapping is that the lead singer Nikolai (Adam Brody) is convinced that Jennifer is a virgin. This is simply because she's slutty looking and therefore can't be sexually active, another choice example of the male psyche as exhibited by Ms. Cody. So the band takes her out, and comically sacrifices her to Satan while singing together, in what amounts to the worst sacrifice scene ever.Fox has gotten quite the beating critically as of late, and I can't say that I find fault with her performance here. While it is less-than-stellar to say the least, she ultimately is about as personable as this awful, awful character could be. Seyfried plays her character with much more depth but even she has to struggle against the anchor that is the horrendous dialogue. The film does have its high points, most notably the sometimes stunning cinematography by M. David Mullen which can at times achieve what the poorly thought out script and hapless direction fail to do; involve you in the story. This ability of Mullen's is particularly up front during the film's climax, where Kusama clearly is trying to make a delicate, obnoxiously anti-climactic final showdown, but Mullen is able to get the most out of the environment. He is so effective, in fact, that I found myself focusing on the smoothness and excellent shot composition instead of what amounted to an awkward, meddling picture. Jennifer's Body therefore does not succeed as horror, a genre which is at its best when it is a raw, visceral experience, but also fails as comedy for lack of effective jokes. The jokes are cut from the same cloth as Juno's, namely they are irritating and formulaic, much like the film itself. A pity.
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Jennifer's Body at IMDB.

Crash

Crash - 1996 - 100 minutes - Directed by David Cronenberg
Starring James Spader, Deborah Kara Unger, Elias Koteas, Rosanna Arquette, Holly Hunter

Writing about David Cronenberg's 1996 film Crash is a labor of love for me; laborious because it is a complicated film, its surface a minefield of amorous confusion and sexual conflict which eludes simplification. It is also a worthwhile endeavor because it lends itself to different critical readings, it possesses several ambiguous qualities which allow for discussion as well as personal interpretation. This openness to interpretation has also led to a ferocity in critical opinion that has gone unmatched for the past decade, such as Christopher Tooley's famous prediction that "a few unstable individuals-particularly if it became available on video, where it could be studied obsessively," would be tempted to echo the film's message which he read as one championing "[the] eroticising [of] sado-masochism and orthopaedic fetishism for people previously unaware of being turned on by acts of mutilation." While Tooley received quite the backlash for his article and has subsequently never moved beyond his reputation as a 'halfwit', his points are worth consideration despite their misguided nature. Crash acts as a mirror, if you are or could be turned on by disabilities and wounds, then you will know by the end of this film. However, if you are not and are not interested in car crashes as sexually transformative events, then you will find not only a distinct lack of erotic material, but also the sly condemnation of this lifestyle. Indeed, the film ends on a note which implies that the end of this spiral is undoubtedly total destruction and --ultimately-- death.Tonally Crash is fascinating for its sterility, few films have touched upon the utter hopelessness of being alive and of trying to connect with someone so completely. The protagonists, James and Catherine Ballard (James Spader and Deborah Kara Unger), begin the film in the arms of other people, exploring their sexualities in unfamiliar environments. For Catherine it is in the open expanse of a private aircraft hangar, where she leans against the cold machinery and exposes herself, her face betraying an attempt to provoke arousal in herself. For James it is in the camera room on his own set with a small woman he admits he could not make orgasm. Catherine comforts James as he tells her this by whispering, "Maybe the next one. Maybe the next one." This is the most engaging intercourse in the film, and Cronenberg does well to begin the film with it as the sex slowly deteriorates in attraction. At first it is filmed almost as pornography, explicit eroticism which is torn apart and by the end of the film the intercourse has become utterly mechanical in function, parts sliding in and out of place before completing their set tasks. Also transformed are the automobile scenes; the first being James wheeling off the side of the road and into oncoming traffic, an average piece of action cinema. By the end of the film the car crashes are much more sexual in nature, the push-pull dynamic of the vehicles is exploited thanks to the sensuous photography of the brilliant Peter Suschitzky who films cars as if they were sexual beings subject to the same whims and desires as the rest of the cast.

Once James has recovered from his injuries he awakens in the hospital to find the victim of his poor driving being helped through the hallways. She is Dr. Helen Remington (Holly Hunter), and although she is at first off put by James' efforts to connect, she warms to him during a conversation among the husks of previously wrecked vehicles. Soon they are having sex, and we discover that Helen's sexual encounters have almost exclusively been limited to the interiors of automobiles. This gives her the added dimension of being a seductress into the world of car crashes, a world which James is only introduced to through his own accidental example. The figurehead of this previously unknown and separate existence is the mysterious Vaughan (Elias Koteas), a convincing character who is capable of submitting completely to his chaotic desires on a level so unique that he acts as a magnet to those who have similar inklings. Vaughan meets James after recreating the crash that killed James Dean, Vaughan escapes from the police into the forest carrying his injured partner Colin Seagrave (Peter MacNeill) with the help of James and Helen. Once they return to Vaughan's workshop James is shown an entryway into a philosophy that believes that "the car crash is a fertilizing rather than a destructive event. A liberation of sexual energy. Mediating the sexuality of those who have died with an intensity that's impossible in any other form."While Vaughan initially misrepresents his position as the reshaping of the human body through the introduction of modern technology, he dismisses this as a science fiction element through which he hides thanks to its harmlessness. This is revelatory in terms of Vaughan's character as he is representing an idea which is clearly incredibly dangerous, the idea that the transformation a body undergoes during a car crash is an evolution of sorts, is a safe one, while the idea that continually living on the margin between life and death is much more attractive and substantive. While this revelation is casually ignored by James, it is worth identifying as it reveals exactly what Crash is all about. Crash works as an indictment of modern society, a society that no longer can function within the borders and boundaries of normality, where people are forced to push themselves to the extremes to feel anything. It is to this end that Cronenberg saps the emotion from the characters, all of them adopting an almost Bressonian melancholy that seems to pollute their every decision, reaction, emotion. The manifestation of the transformed melancholy takes the form of the quiet though seemingly satisfied disabled woman Gabrielle, her body mangled by a car wreck. She acts as the medium between the main characters and the metaphysical event that is the car crash, as she is a constant reminder of the consequences as she is both disabled but also is a much happier person, a person more engaged with life. In the most controversial scene in which James penetrates a deep wound on her leg, it is not about a connection between these people as sex has already been rendered almost obsolete. It is about getting as close as possible to the idea of the car crash, literally fucking what has been left behind. In this instance other orifices are useless as they are part of Gabrielle since birth, however this other hole, this wound, is a direct product of the wreck.

In one of the most interesting and provocative scenes, Gabrielle sits on a couch with James and Helen, with Seagrave and Vaughan in the same room. They watch videos of car crashes repeatedly and Helen soon becomes visibly aroused, grasping at the crotches of both Gabrielle and James, suggesting a completely unifying experience. Right before the climax of the video the TV pauses and Vaughan begins to speak. Helen becomes upset, declaring that she is certain that "we see this again in slow motion. Closer I mean. In detail." These half dozen characters (including Catherine) are faced with their inability to feel anything in the usual fashion, and as they experiment on the margins of society they become more and more comfortable until each transgression is only a gateway to another. These are people brought together by their love of recreating singular events, the individual car crash which is an impossible event to recreate. Thus they are victims of a fatalistic philosophy, destined to fail despite their every effort as no crash could ever be replicated. Vaughan, being the figurehead, is the only one who truly is bound to this philosophy, paving the way for the others through his use of video, recreation and poetic rallying. Vaughan is, in essence, looking for someone as transgressive as he is and in his failure he is left hopeless, forced to actualize his own belief that the only real vital experiences exist in the moments before death, before the end is written in stone.As James, Catherine, Helen and Gabrielle all subscribe to this fatalistic philosophy for one reason or another the film's conclusion alludes to their mutual annihilation. With James and Catherine we see them visibly distraught by Vaughan's realization of his dreams and his ascent into "immortality", but then they attempt to replicate it. In a sense Vaughan has become the same kind of celebrity he worships, because it's never about the fame of the driver that Vaughan is interested in, but the fame of the crash. The glory of the destruction. And in acting out his own destruction he transcends the trappings of his own philosophizing and limited experiences and becomes a legend worthy of his aspirations. These aspirations are passed on to James and Catherine and after they claim his wreck they act out a similar situation in which James, as a stand-in for Vaughan, terrorizes Catherine in the most sensually shot episode in the film. He eventually drives her off the road and into the grass, a result they are both dismayed by. Yet once James pulls Catherine from the car and lays with her next to the wreckage, affectionately caressing her bruised body, he whispers the same words she had earlier used to comfort him. "Maybe the next one, darling. Maybe the next one."

Crash is rooted in Cronenberg's filmography, the techniques he'd learned through previous efforts being used to stellar effect here. While a commonly touted perspective is that things are more terrifying if you see little of them, ala Jaws, Cronenberg has always taken the more courageous route of dragging the monster into the sunlight and allowing the viewer to explore its visage. It is this approach that Crash benefits from so greatly, Cronenberg shows the viewer all aspects of his characters' sexuality and forces us to make a decision. We can either ignore their sexual impulses and decry them as base, unforgivable transgressions against human nature, or we can allow Cronenberg's narrative to guide us on a tour of these hopeless and fractured individuals.This latter option is only possible thanks to the superb acting from an astounding cast. Spader, Koteas, and Arquette all give quiet, reserved performances that are perfectly suited to their characters. Unger is the standout, as she often is, and works as the infrastructure that links Spader's need for exploratory experiences with Vaughan's masochistic tendencies and for that she needs to be able to match talents against everyone in the film. Luckily, she is able to do so with great conviction, taking over every scene she's in by utilizing her inherent sexuality and her throaty voice. Suschitzky seems to be enamored with her, the camera dwelling on individual crevices and folds with the intimacy of a lover scorned, for it is not a sexual charge that she brings but an obsessive one. Suschitzky is similarly enamored with the sites of the car crashes, explosive environments which Cronenberg has us walk through step by step, fetishizing the broken glass and twisted steel. Cronenberg shows more audacity in Crash than any other filmmaker of his time, and it exudes confidence in that there is little evidence of any sort of compromise, from its brilliantly understated score by Howard Shore to the coolly fluid cinematography. And that really is the film's defining characteristic; it is uncompromising.
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Crash at Amazon.

In the Meantime...

These Improbable Movie Trading Cards brought to you by Row Three are pretty great. I especially enjoy the Schindler's List one above.