Weird Or Wonderful? It’s Different

If you think that David Lynch has a cesspool for a brain, then you’re probably not emotionally equipped to handle David Cronenberg’s “Crash.”

For just as Lynch specializes in splashing his id across the big screen in such sex-and-violence-charged movies as “Blue Velvet,” “Wild at Heart” and “Lost Highway,” Canadian filmmaker Cronenberg, too, is obsessed with exploring those dark corners of the psyche that most of us cover up with heavy layers of what often is nothing more than simple denial.

Cases in point: “Videodrome,” “Dead Ringers,” “Naked Lunch,” etc.

You might already have heard of “Crash.” Based on a 1973 novel by J.G. Ballard (“Empire of the Sun”), it won a special jury prize at last year’s Cannes Film Festival. Yet it was deemed so “sick” (Cronenberg’s word) by Ted Turner that he ordered his film company to delay last October’s proposed American release.

So while Seattle moviegoers were denied access to the film, anyone willing to travel just a couple of hours north could see it in a downtown Vancouver, British Columbia, theater.

When Time Warner bought Turner out, “Crash” ultimately was freed from his constraints. And now American audiences are free to judge for themselves just how weird Cronenberg’s vision is.

Here is the film’s plot in basic detail: Characters who live lives of stunned, doleful submission are able to feel sexual pleasure only when they are involved in, or are witness to, car crashes.

Yes, folks, we are not talking about a Disney production here.

Toronto resident James (James Spader) is our protagonist. He and his wife Catherine (Deborah Unger) seem to love each other, but they do so in a manner that suggests they need extended sessions of serious shock therapy. He, for example, prefers to have sex in strange places (a high balcony, for example); she is driven to have sex with strangers.

A kind of shock, of course, is exactly what happens when James is severely injured in a car crash that kills a man and wounds - in all senses of the word - the man’s wife (Holly Hunter). For it is while recovering from the accident that James meets Vaughn (Elias Koteas), a scarred-up veteran of his own bizarre “projects.”

Vaughn leads James into his world of particular kinkiness that involves staging recreations, believe it or not, of famously fatal auto crashes - such as the ones that killed James Dean, Albert Camus and Jayne Mansfield. Vaughn works as a kind of demented therapist, inviting James to participate in what he terms the “benevolent psychopathology” that results from such events.

For its first half, while all this is being set up, the film seems to have promise. There’s some sense that Cronenberg is getting at something universal, that the characters may somehow be defining themselves and, by extension, all of us as a culture.

But then the movie devolves and becomes a mere curiosity piece. Relegated to being little more than voyeurs at, say, a serious accident, we - like the characters - end up feeding off pain and tragedy even as we (most of us anyway) feel repelled by it.

Vaughn ultimately becomes a killer - or does he? - and, in any event, ends up being devoured by his own fetish. James, all too willingly, then takes his place.

Despite what you may think of all this, “Crash” does have its quality points. From a visual point of view, Cronenberg has forgotten more about cinematography, pacing and simple scene construction than many directors will ever know. And actors such as Spader and Hunter are always interesting to watch.

Still, “Crash” - big surprise here - has its problems, though the main one doesn’t involve its fixation with sexual deviancy. No, the film’s biggest problem is its characters who are so self-involved, so taken with their need to fulfill their personal pleasures, that they are virtually unlikable.

And instead of explaining why these people are the way they are, Cronenberg gives us a succession of scenes involving sex in a car wash, simulated sex in a car showroom, sex in an airport garage, tattoo fetishes, gimp sex, etc., not to mention gay sex presented as if it were just another perversion, period.

Which leaves us with this: A “masterpiece,” which is what some critics have called “Crash,” should take us to new levels of consciousness. And since “Crash” successfully smashes any sense of what typically constitutes a link between sexual obsession and reasonable behavior, it definitely takes us to places previously unexplored.

But there needs to be a tradeoff between a film and its audience. If we are to follow a filmmaker someplace beyond our usual imagination, he or she in turn has an obligation to reward our patience with a thrill or a chill or, most preferably, an intellectual jolt.

In “Crash,” Cronenberg offers too little of all three - unless your idea of good cinema is watching someone lick someone else’s tattoo.

Actor James Woods spoke for many of us when he said, “(Cronenberg) works from his dreams. If he’d just dream a little more normally, I’d love to work with him again.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Photos

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: “Crash” **-1/2 Location: Magic Lantern Cinemas Credits: Directed by David Cronenberg, starring James Spader, Holly Hunter, Elias Koteas, Deborah Unger, Rosanna Arquette. Running time: 1:43 Rating: NC-17