Film Comment: Crash Test

The viewer comments on this film on both The Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com) and on Netflix (www.netflic.com) were in total agreement. Everybody hated it. Most thought it was one of the worst, most boring films they ever saw. They attacked it's talkiness, it's almost total lack of action, the ultra-cheap low-bugetness, the less than stellar acting, the minimal plot, the fact that the car crashes didn't involve any cars crashing, and on and on and on. I actually liked this film and I think the others totally missed what it was about. They would probably agree.

The best description of Crash Test (2003) is that it is an Australian minimalist science fiction/horror/political film, with a strong stress on the political. The bare bones plot is this: a man is kidnapped by the Motorkore Corporation and surgically altered into a human crash test dummy named 171096. When he awakens, his training begins. The training consists of being encouraged to run full speed into a brick wall on command. At first, the wall is padded with a mattress, then a quilt, then a thin piece of styrofoam, and finally the naked bricks are exposed. Run into the wall, it is your friend.

What has happened to you is good. You are part of a team and we can do great things together. To be a successful crash test dummy you must give us total and absolute obedience. Run into the wall, it is your friend. The system never fails.

Many people, myself included, think that western culture is heading into the direction of an enforced uniformity based on totalitarian and even fascist impulses by "those who know what is best for us," what Pope Benedict XVI calls the "dictatorship of relativism." Carried to the most extreme ends of its logic, the belief that there are no moral absolutes can declare that those who insist on absolutes (Christians, for example) are outsiders, even criminals, guilty of Hate Speech, intolerance, of not fitting in. There is a real danger of persecution of those who fail to "get with the agenda."

Film Comment: Vegas in Space

Vegas in Space (1991) is one of the weirdest movies you will ever see.

Three outer space soldiers take pills to transform themselves into women in order to go undercover (as showgirls!) to Vegas in Space, the capital city of an all-female planet. They're there trying to find out who stole Queen Veneer's jewels.

All but two of the parts are played by drag queens, two of whom died of AIDS the same year the film was released. There are unrelenting gowns, glitter, wigs, thick pancake makeup, 27 cent sets, and atrocious over-acting. This movie is up your nose with all it's garishness. I suspect that it is not really intended so much as a film but as an in your face "so what do I care what you think?" statement. It drips hostility to societal norms from every sequin.

What the film actually represents is the final level of moral relativism, where each person defines their own "truth." Each person lives as they choose unconstrained by any norms or common moral ground; "being themselves." Man has no higher judge and any moral rules are merely individual preferences. Many see this as ultimate freedom and personal valuation but, in truth, it declares that there is no real value to anything, including human life. Human life can be manipulated and even discarded, The door is open to the development of fascism.