Ray Bradbury wrote a short story entitled “The Crowd” about a crash victim who recognizes the faces in the crowd around him. In a jolting realization, the victim discovers that the same morbidly curious people gather around all accident wreckage. The characters in David Cronenberg’s Crash are also drawn to the excitement of danger, but they do not satisfy themselves as onlookers. They must be the victims.

Crash is based on a novel by J.G. Ballard, whose semi-autobiography Empire of the Sun, was brought to the screen by Steven Spielberg. Ballard claims that Crash is also somewhat autobiographical, “in the sense that it is about my inner life, my imaginative life ... not the life I have actually led.”

When the lives of an adulterous movie producer (James Spader) and a doctor (Holly Hunter) meet at 60 miles per hour, their accident opens up a new realm of sexuality to them. The couple explores their newfound attraction with the aid of Vaughan (Elias Koteas), the leader of a group of crash survivors who reenact accidents as a form of erotic entertainment. One of the movie’s most fascinating scenes is an impressive restaging of James Dean’s fatal wreck.

Watching Crash is like stepping into a circus freak show. Everything is dark and mysterious, overshadowed by Howard Shore’s eerie music. We watch because we are voyeurs; we want to see the abnormal and strange concoctions of Ballard’s imagination. At times the camera breaks its objectivity and worships the twisted chrome of a fender, jagged scars left like casualties from a battle, or the tattoo of a steering wheel on Vaughan’s chest. We expect to be disgusted by what we see, and the movie does not disappoint us in that respect.

However, Crash would be a much better movie if it spent more time showing us the way the characters’ minds work rather than the way their bodies do. The movie openly explores just about every possible sexual avenue from necrophilia to homosexuality in graphic detail. Audiences interested in this sort of content would be better satisfied with other movies. Instead of trying to arouse us, Crash should have focused on the way a fetish can override the natural instinct for self-preservation.

Perhaps the biggest leap in Ballard’s logic is the assumption that the thrill the characters seek in a split-second accident should logically lead to their other sexual activities. After his release from the hospital, Ballard notices that there seem to be ten times as many cars on the street. Observations like these are convincing reactions to a car crash, and are easy enough for an audience to believe. However, a later sex scene in the world’s longest car wash comes as quite a stretch. The thrill the characters seek in a split-second accident doesn’t explain why Ballard enjoys watching another man brutally rape his wife in the back seat of a 1963 black Lincoln convertible, identical to the car in which President Kennedy was assassinated. These scenes are undoubtedly about sexual perversion, but they leave behind possible explanations for the behavior.

The movie succeeds for the most part. Its daring content is definitely worthy of recognition (and its NC-17 rating). In fact, the film won the a special Jury Prize at Cannes for daring, originality and audacity. Despite its willingness to explore new material, the movie is somewhat disappointing. The actors’ passion seems real, but they never quite convince us of their motivation.