Commonly, for most of us human beings, a car accident fuels our desire for voyeurism in a twisted way. It’s something behind our control, we need to watch. Ballard’s novel relates sex with technology written in a cold, detached way. Cronenberg’s movie is no different. Right from the start he puts you in the main role – you, as the voyeur, as the eyes that fuel every emotion; the technology and the characters as mere pawns in the twisted world of wreckage.

Filmed as an almost diabolical nightmare, there is no certainty of time, days become night almost vaguely, the characters are almost pathetically empty – yet, deeply disturbed, deeply rooted into their intense fetishism. More than a mere visual journey, it twists your brain as if you were in a permanent car crash.

Here, the crash is just a mere metaphor for our consumerism, for our detachment of emotions. We root in objects, in technology. Here the sex is the extreme personification of our evilness, of our constant pursue of the next object to attach.

(…)

Painful, but just plain gorgeous for those who don’t fear giving up their secrets and embrace their darkest sexual deviance

the rest of my essay: http://heartbreakmotel.net/crash-1996/