Crash
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INTRODUCED BY KATE VINEN
Overview
Crash is about romance, it's about sex, it's about chosen family, it's about staging elaborate car accidents that will hopefully maim, if not kill, you and your friends. Adapted from the controversial novel by James G. Ballard, it follows apathetic film producer and bad driver James Ballard (James Spader) after his life is upended by a horrific wreck. During his recovery, Ballard meets Dr Remington (Holly Hunter) and is drawn into a strange demi-monde of fellow survivors who have transformed their traumatic injuries into a search for pleasure. Ballard's wife Catherine (Deborah Kara Unger) finds herself intrigued by the group's paraphilia and close bond as they further isolate themselves from society, chasing more and more dangerous thrills re-enacting infamous celebrity auto deaths.
Why You Should See This Film
The subject of campaigns to “Ban This Car Crash Sex Film!” from newspapers and cinema owners, Crash is the movie that everyone thought would ruin Cronenberg's career. Instead it won the rarely-awarded Cannes Special Jury Prize (for originality, daring and audacity) and stands as one of his most fully realised works at the intersection of all his artistic obsessions: alienation and desire, with technology as an extension of the human body that can be modified at will. Especially vivid here is his depiction of a collective of like-minded souls on the fringes of society, quietly going about their clandestine perversions until the moment they violently break through into the lives of others. Chilly, beautiful and at times very funny, Crash is an experience that will stay with you.
Introduced by Kate Vinen
Kate Vinen is an award-winning filmmaker whose films have screened in festivals, on streaming platforms and in galleries and biennales. A graduate of the Masters in Screen at AFTRS, her short film Acts for the Invisible (2021) premiered at the Sydney Film Festival and won Best Documentary at the CILECT CAPA Awards. Her short drama Hopeful Romantic (2022) premiered at Flickerfest, winning five awards including Best Film at the Australian Women's Film Festival. She is an alumna of the Adelaide Film Festival Expand Lab and Playlab Films Creators Lab, and is currently co-directing the feature documentary Consensual with Media Stockade. In her spare time she programs films for Festivals, moderates filmmaker panels, and teaches film.
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