Product ReviewsCrash (VHS, 1997)

Cronenberg's "Crash" Tops Cannes 1996 Film Festival

Canadian director David Cronenberg won an award for "originality, audacity and daring" at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival for "Crash." Original, daring & audacious it is, indeed; & then some! Nodding in agreement with this Variety Magazine critique of the film & its brazen director: "...Cronenberg is a master of creating and sustaining a mood of insinuating cool and dark allure..." - Todd McCarthy. Insinuating is the only word I'd change & it would be to 'blatant cool & dark allure'.

Novice's to Cronenberg's film corpus might call "Crash" a strangely obscene film about fetishists who get off before, during & after reproducing famous car crashes. The Jimmy Dean & Jane Mansfield fatal wrecks are both examples of car crashes that this film features.

"Crash" (1996) is based upon the novel by J.G. Ballard, who is also the lead character in the show played by a very sexy & slim James Spader--in the raw. The film opens in a private airplane hanger with a beautiful blonde, Deborah Kara Unger, leaning forward over an airplane while an unknown man steps out of an elevator & becomes blatantly sexual with her. (This is when adults take children & exit the movie theater or turn off this VHS). Be forewarned:
"Crash" is underrated at RRRR!

Ballard (Spader), in his office, is engaged in sexual intercourse, while his name is being called to be the director on the set. Right off the bat, this film is graphically erotic in the 1st two scenes with both lead actors (Spader & Unger). In truth, Cronenberg somehow got away with bringing soft pornography into mainstream cinema, film & culture. By so doing, "Crash" reveals that there's an aspect of society that really lives from one fetish scene to the next. For some, that realization will be shocking. For others, "Crash" is refreshingly true to real life. Still, for more, it's both a relief to celebrate their lifestyle being publicly affirmed. Yet, for a very small minority, "Crash" represents an outrageous moral decline by society. "Crash's" success at the box office, film rental shops & at the sales counters where copies of the film are sold indicates there's a wide enough audience for Cronenberg's most brazenly sexual film.

Unger & Spader's characters are a nontraditional couple. The opening scenes set the erotic mood for the entire film. Monogamy is not a family value in this film. What comprises a family is at long last presented as human bonds that transcend biological blood-line destiny. In "Crash" there is space enough for every kind of family & every type of expression of jouissance (French word meaning the build of tension to such a height that the release thereof is ecstasy).

After Ballard (Spader) survives a head-on car collision into the car of a physician (Holly Hunter) & her husband (who dies), that car crash triggers an erotic heightening in both survivors. While the survivors are hospitalized, a nihilistic television producer inadvertently gathers round him other car crash nihilists. Their car crashing features are as erotic as erotica gets. What is erotic to them are skid marks, scars, crumpled metal, leather bindings for broken bones, live reproductions & films of car crashes. This story seriously questions what is erotica? And, who says so?

"Crash" is steamingly sexual & yet not quite pornographic enough to cross the line into being a back room video from a sex toy shop. With acting talent of Rosanna Arquette being extremely sensuous, "Crash" by Cronenberg is the best~Read full review...