Crash (1996)

Another Wednesday movie with the philosophers. Not too many of us this time. Cronenberg's film is a bit tricky to watch. Almost 70 % of the film is taken up by the characters', well, fucking. But I suppose Cronenberg didn't want his movie to be entertaining in a conventional sense (interesting plot, psychological depth). As a matter of fact it's, on a certain level, a very boring film. There's lots of repetition, and if it weren't, I guess Cronenberg wouldn't have brought home the point. With the exception of some exhilarating scenes involving apocalyptic-looking urban landscapes and streets, this is mostly a film about the relation between body, body, car. A TV director survives a car crash. He becomes involved with some people who are into car accidents - sexually, that is. He tries it out for himself, and there's something that makes him crave for yet another car crash. Watching it, participating it, feeling the bodily bruises. The question that I ask myself while watching Crash is what kind of thrill these car crashes represent to these people. Actually, there is a question whether these blank-faced people can be satisfied or thrilled or excited. (What does the ending mean? The circle is closed?) Everything in this film is dead and dull, simmering in blue creepy light. Fitting. Every character seems strangely disengaged & numb throughout the film. Erotic zombies feeding on each other's corpses but only mediated by metal and rubber. What do they want? Death?
What surprised me afterwards while talking about the film is how many comic scenes there actually are. While watching it, I didn't really feel like laughing, except once (a scene involving a robotic Swedish voice).
Crash made me think about lots of things. Desire machines, most of all. Bodies that are bodies no more, but just pieces of machinery, just like those cars, reduced to some strange flows of flat urges. But maybe that is a hard reading to make because, for all the humping bodies and body parts, it's quite hard to see any desire expressed by these characters (sorry...bodies).