I do not know if the term "auto-erotica" was an inspiration for Crash, one of the most controversial films of the 1990s. Crash is stylish, sometimes unintentionally funny, but never afraid to be daring.
Filmmaker James Ballard (James Spader) and his wife Catherine (Deborah Unger) are in an open marriage. It is so open that they discuss their extramarital liaisons to each other while having boring sex with each other. One fateful night, James is involved in a head-on collision that kills the other driver. The female passenger in the other car, however, was wearing a seat belt, which she removes along with exposing to her breast to the shell-shocked James.
Recovering from his own injuries, James learns of that other victim, Dr. Helen Remington (Holly Hunter). He also meets another "doctor", Robert Vaughn (Elias Koteas), who has a fascination with James' injuries. James soon discovers that both Vaughn and Remington are part of a secret group that is sexually aroused by car crashes, going so far as to recreate famous car deaths like that of James Dean. James soon falls in with this crowd, finding erotic thrill in the wreckage.
Soon, this trio, along with Gabrielle (Rosanna Arquette), another car crash fetisher, begin their various sexual encounters with each other. Even Catherine gets in on the act, though she just wants sex with Vaughn separate from the crashes. Catherine even admits to fantasizing that Vaughn and James have sex with each other.
Eventually, we see death come to some in the group in the efforts to find their thrills, but will our twisted couples find the ultimate satisfaction among the wreckage?
I do not know if Crash is meant to be symbolic of how cold sex can be among people to where literal death and destruction become the ultimate turn-ons. Director David Cronenberg's adaptation of the J.G. Ballard does not shrink from the more lurid elements of these twisted individuals. The sex and the crashes are graphic, but I found a certain coldness to things.
However, I think the coldness is deliberate. Cronenberg, I think, does not mean for us to see the characters as rational or good. I would say that we are meant to see them as addicts, unfeeling, dead already. The sex is not built on love. I doubt that it is built on pleasure. Instead, it seems to be built on the search for pleasure.
The coldness is captured in sometimes almost beautiful imagery. When James, Vaughn and Catherine come upon an accident, Crash looks almost lush in how the film slows down to take in every detail. Vaughn sees that the victim is a fellow car crash enthusiast, Seagraves (Peter MacNeill). He is dressed as Jayne Mansfield, whose crash he was going to recreate for the group. Crash looks on this scene not in horror, not in shock, but in cool detachment. Vaughn looks on this in almost disappointed, as if Seagraves' failure to recreate Mansfield's death to them is the greater tragedy.
Sometimes though, Crash ends up being funny, at least to me. There is a scene late in the film where James and Gabrielle indulge while in a showroom vehicle. Gabrielle has an artificial leg due to a previous car crash. When they are having sex (as no one actually makes love here), I think the intent was to make the scene erotic or at least troubling. All I could picture was Inspector Kemp struggling with his artificial arm in Young Frankenstein.
The performances are appropriately cold. I think James Spader was meant to play James, this blank figure in search of great sensual satisfaction. He shows brief moments of doubt about things, but he never emerges to pull himself out. Unger matches if not outdoes Spader in making Catherine colder, more emotionally dead. She has sex, but she has no love. As Vaughn, Koteas is appropriately creepy in his manner.
Arquette is not a major part of the film and as stated previously, I found her part unintentionally funny. Hunter did a good job, but I felt at times that she was a bit broad as this hard woman.
Crash also has strong production design and an excellent Howard Shore score, blending elements of electric rock to a lusher style.
Crash, I understand, was controversial when released. The more graphic elements in terms of sex and death are what I think caused so many to be appalled by it. This is not a pleasant subject and is not for everyone. It is not for me, but I do appreciate the craftsmanship behind the production. Appropriately cold and clinical, Crash works for what it is: an exploration of how some people lose their humanity amid their own personal wreckage.
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