Watch Crash For Free

That was an excellent one.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

I really love the works of David Cronenberg. His idea of cinema is really wonderful. The kind of atmosphere he creates while delivering his stories is simply fabulous. Recently, i watched his film 'Crash' (1996). Unlike, his other works like 'The Fly' (1986) or 'Videodrome'(1983), i was slightly apprehensive about this one. This was because of the mixed audience response this film had got. No matter, how much we claim that we do not care about the thoughts of others, we are all guilty of basing our reaction after considering others.Nevertheless, i did end up watching 'Crash' and can safely conclude that anyone after watching this one would either love it or simply hate it. It's seems hard to imagine any other kind of reaction considering the subject matter of the film. The plot involves a group of individuals seeking sexual gratification from an unusual source that is a car crash. The film revolves around the character of James Ballard who after having survived through a horrible car accident ends up undergoing a shift in his attitude towards such incidents so much so that he begins getting sexually drawn towards these incidents . This happens after he ends up meeting with a women who was also the victim of the car accident in which he was involved.She introduces him with a person named 'Vaughan' who seems to do nothing but plan car accidents so that he can derive pleasure from them. James ends up getting to be a part of Vaughan's gang. The arousal through these activities ends up improving the sex life of James and his wife who earlier were having passionless sex. As is quite understandable a plot like this would invariably attract wide variety of reaction both positive and negative.For me the important theme that this film tries to portray is based on how an incident like a car crash which is generally associated with tragedy can really be turned into something highly sexual in nature. 'Crash' is the study of human psychology and shows how easily it can be transformed from one particular kind of reaction to another of the same event by just changing the outlook. The incidents of car crashes in this film try not to evoke sympathy from the audience but they actually try to sexually incite the audiences through such incidents.Eventually, whether this film does or does not work for you will depend upon a particular reaction it evokes from the viewer. If the thought of blood,sperm, shredded glass,dirty car etc. together disgusts you then this movie will surely not work for you.

To put it mildly, Crash is a movie that you can either accept or you can't. You are either able to see beyond the trappings presented on the outside, or all you see is the outside. I'm not going to say that you either get it or you don't, because that would be wrong. However, Crash is a film that has been polarising since it was screened for the first time. With that comes a certain idea of what the film is, and all I can say is that the people who take the negative view on Crash are selling the creative mind of David Cronenberg criminally short.If you heard that Crash is all about sex and car crashes, then you heard correctly, but you also heard wrong. The sex and the car crashes are windows into the true story that Cronenberg wants to tell. The ideas he wants to examine are laid out for the viewer through the sex and car crashes. To look at the sex and see only sex, or to look at the car crashes and see only car crashes is to deny what is under the surface of the entire film.What is under the surface you ask, emotion and what it means to us is the simplest answer. That's the problem with this review, I'm doing my best to keep this review and not be long winded. Crash doesn't make that easy, it is a complex and thought provoking film, the type that I could write about for paragraph after paragraph. I am fighting the impulse to break the film down in a massively thorough style, but at the same time I hope that by holding myself back I'm not giving the movie the short end of the stick.Okay, that slight case of being sidetracked is behind me, let's get back to the point at hand. Crash is about emotion, the emotion that we experience in our everyday lives. Sex is nothing but heightened emotion, and on that note so are violent acts, death, and so on. Sex is a deeply emotional and personal act, but that doesn't mean it is an act that is individualistic. We get a charge out of sex because it involves more than just ourselves, the same is true of violence. There is an animal power in both, an animal power driven by the emotions and the people present. Crash asks a few simple questions, where do we draw the line on acceptability and should there be any line?Cronenberg directs Crash so that it is dripping with sex. What he does with atmosphere is brilliant. There are moments when the movie isn't sexual in any way, but he has so ingrained sex into the atmosphere that the audience begins to ascribe sexual connotations to every moment of the film. If, as we try to tell ourselves on a daily basis, sex doesn't dominate our lives then why do we so easily view non-sexual scenes as sexual? The camera also fluctuates, at times Cronenberg lets the camera play the role of an observant stalker. At other times he unleashes the camera like a predator on the hunt. The camera ends up leering and slinking about just as much as it is on its hind legs ready to strike. This creates an interesting quandary for the viewer. We are left without steady footing, Cronenberg is constantly jostling us around, never giving the viewer a moment to think they are safe and actually understand what is going on or what will happen next.Fighting the urge to go more in-depth with my analysis is very hard, to counter that impulse I'm going to try and touch on a few more things and then call it a day.There is a connection between sex, cars and violence. In real life this connection rarely, if ever, happens at the same time. There are people who jones for sex, violence, violent sex, cars, violent car crashes or sex in a car. Crash is very real in some aspects, but it doesn't concern itself with staying real or honest. Cronenberg isn't interested in exploring what real connections may exist between sex, violence and cars. Rather, he is interested in exploring what those three say about humanity when they are heightened to the next stage in their evolution.The last thing I'd like to touch on is the acting in Crash. It would be very easy to watch Crash and come away thinking that the cast doesn't bother to do much. That couldn't be further from the truth, and I dare say that I have seen very few performances that match that of Elias Koteas as Vaughan. He is a haunted man, but he's an intelligent man, a man who can't be figured out and doesn't stop to allow the audience to understand him at all. Koteas may be the highlight acting wise, but the rest of the cast delivers as well. Deborah Kara Unger is icy cool, monotone at every second, but her brain is always working. She isn't dull, she functions on a higher level, dissecting all her experiences beneath her stoic exterior. Holly Hunter is the true thrill seeker of the bunch, always looking for her next fix, the where and the how doesn't matter, her character trembles in anticipation of the next "act." James Spader is aloof, and maybe that is just the character Spader plays in every role, but it fits perfectly in Crash. Lastly there is Rosanna Arquette's Gabriella, who enjoys her handicap. She views it a badge of honour and as an exhilarating way to explore more of her sexuality. I'm not saying for a second that you have to like any of their characters, but the performances behind those characters leave a lot to like.

Crash is a film I do not have many good things to say about and yet still cannot downrate it because I do like the cast and always enjoy the signature Cronenberg material sensuality that conveys highly distinct tactile sensations via light and sound. That said, Crash is a boring movie and not so much edgy as something to be endured. Crash does not feel cool or adventurous and yet most of the film is action; it is like a pornographic movie -- not much plot but just goes through different scenarios, yet does not feel sexy and so does not create tension. The vibe is corrupt, uncool, and dystopic like a glam rock band playing in the mid 90s to a bored audience in a half-filled stadium that needs to be torn down. They smash their gear and we can only think that it was not worth it, what a waste. I would like to think this was all intentional, because I like other Cronenberg films, but cannot really recommend it except to the curious ones that want to see something different.

David Cronenberg's 'Crash' shares something in common with Louis Malle's 'Damage' (read that sentence again and see if you don't smile). Both are films about people fixated on a dangerous obsession. 'Damage', the better of the two was about a man's unhealthy sexual obsession with his son's fiancée. 'Crash' is about a group of people who have an unhealthy sexual obsession with car accidents. Which would you prefer to watch? Me too.The movie begins with a couple (James Spader and Debra Kara Unger) fixated on the thrill of sex in a public place. He gets in a car accident and the husband of the woman (Holly Hunter) in the other car is killed. The two meet at an impound lot and find that they both got off on the accident.Cut to another couple played by Elias Koteas and Roseanna Arquette. Her scarred legs are in braces and he makes a public display out of reenacting the famous celebrity car accidents that killed James Dean and Jane Mansfield. Somehow Koteas, Spader and Hunter all come together, drawn apparently not by sex but by their similar fetish.I am a fan of David Cronenberg because even his lesser films are never boring. 'Crash' is one of his lesser films. It doesn't work because I never for one moment found myself interested in what they were doing. Maybe that was the point but I couldn't get beyond their bizarre attraction to something so horrible. The movie is too slow and even for Cronenberg, hard to take I think the reason that I like 'Damage' more was because I had a starting point with the obsession that Jeremy Irons had with this son's fiancée. I have no idea why the characters in 'Crash' love car accidents and judging by their behavior, I don't think that I want to know.