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We
immediately change perspective and move to a car graveyard. Here we see
Ballard's car, or what remains of it, sitting beneath an overpass across which
it can never pass again. We hear cars travelling overhead, like planes, but it
is clear that for this vehicle, all travels are over.
Ballard is
standing behind the car, looking on, just as we had seen him in the previous
scene looking into the empty parking space. This is the reality for him, this
is where his last journey had ended.
Soon Ballard
will not be alone. With the arrival of a guiding angel, he will soon take the
next step. It is not clear if it is coincidence or not, but at the same time he
is visiting his car, standing at a crossroads, Remington wanders into view. She
too is here to look at her smashed vehicle, her dead husband’s car. She is
drawn to Ballard, and to Ballard's own vehicle. It is as though she has
anticipated Ballard’s visit, and wanted to make sure she was part of it.
Ballard's
reaction to his car is one of wonder. He has yet to completely come to terms
with his new found enjoyments, and he not only needs to see the damage, but he
also has to run through events in his mind.
To this end,
Ballard opens the driver’s side door and climbs into the seat, trying to relive
the moment of impact, and what immediately followed. At the time of the
original accident, what followed was severally limited by his injuries. Despite
having Remington at the scene with him, nothing could be consummated due to the
effects of the impact. Now he relives the scene with Remington, without the
immediate, disarming, physical side effects.
We see him
rubbing the scar on his forehead, and then reaching out into the air where the
windshield had been, touching the rear view mirror that must have struck his
head.
He reaches down
toward the pornography strewn on the floor, it's speckled with shards of broken
glass. He touches a Polaroid of what we can assume is a previous lover taking
off her blouse, exposing her breasts. These are thoughts of memories past, of
more obvious sexual acts and favours.
When Remington
arrives they exchange a long glance at each other. It is clear that she is
farther along the path to a Crash realisation than Ballard. She shifts from one
foot to the other, waiting for him to make a move. She is clearly not sexually
aggressive, and wants him to lead her - to accept this new way of thinking and
feeling without interference. It’s almost as though she does not want to induct
Ballard into the Crash world, that all participants must simply find themselves
there, fully accepting, without explanation.
In order to
further illustrate her passive aggression, it is Remington who walks to the
front of Ballard's car and begins to connect with the impact zones. She reaches
out with gloved hands, moving the light fixtures in their broken sockets,
feeling the textures and sharp edges of the car that had killed her husband.
All of this
touching makes Ballard nervous, and he reaches out to prevent her touching the
car, a spark of tension flying between them. This is perhaps one of the
strangest seductions shown in film. The couple are united not by the death of
Remington's husband, although that's a consequence of the accident. Rather, they
are already attracted to the potential for another accident, another vehicle,
and the possibilities of other things they can do in cars, such as having
affairs which Remington later tells us
"felt like accidents".
Whereas we
might expect such a sexual encounter to end in a hotel room or back at one of
their apartments, this being Crash we will inevitably end up in a car. Ballard
says: "I somehow find myself driving again".
And soon they move to his new home for seduction – a place modelled exactly as
his crash vehicle had been. |