The Cars That Ate Paris

This little film appears to have stirred up radical dissent amongst many reviewers. Comments ranging from "stupid," "dull," "dark," "gothic," even "evil!" (I liked that one particularly!) Some other moron figured it was the worst film he'd ever seen. (Obviously he didn't sit through I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE!)

Now time-out here...let's just back it up a bit! Peter Weir is not what you would term a prolific director. He has made just 15 features in exactly 30 years - he doesn't rush things! This was his second turn in the chair. He had at his disposal a budget not much more than that for a 60 second TV Commercial and he was under pressure to finish the flick in time for its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival that year. He did OK and in a master stroke of marketing, managed to get the "star" of the movie - the spiked beetle, on to the Cannes streets where it caused a media sensation. The film was very well received by an appreciative audience.

So, the story is far-fetched? Some of the residents of tiny bush-town Paris deliberately cause auto-wrecks to boost the town's economy. Sure its a way left-field storyline and the acting was never going to win an Oscar nomination. It has though, that indefinable "something" and is early Peter Weir - a study of people in crisis or near crisis? It deserves to be seen for what it is, and the manner in which it shaped Peter Weir's future. THE CARS THAT ATE PARIS was in effect a springboard that gave Weir the opportunity to make PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK the following year. If "Paris" had been a total flop he may never have been asked to direct it!

Watch it again and look for innovation, clever camera angles, smart direction...they're all there! This is relegated now to almost cult film-status in Australia, it is somewhat of a time-capsule!

The only question I have, is who changed the name of this film to THE CARS THAT ATE PEOPLE for US release? especially as they have their OWN "Paris"...in Texas!

First, let me note that there seems to be different versions of the film floating around on home video. A few reviews complain about poorly lit or dark scenes. Someone mentioned that there's a bad pan & scan version floating around. And apparently, in the early history of the film, there was a badly cut version making the rounds with the title Cars That Eat People. That may have even ended up on VHS. So make sure you get the Home Vision Entertainment DVD released in 2003. It also has director Peter Weir's film The Plumber (1979) as a bonus, plus interviews with Weir about each film, as well as trailers. More importantly, it has a pristine, original widescreen cut of The Cars That Ate Paris. As long as you have your television or monitor set up correctly, the film has remarkably crisp, frequently beautiful cinematography that looks like it could have been shot yesterday.

There also seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about the nature of the film. Basically, The Cars That Ate Paris is a quirky art-house drama. Yes, it has elements of (macabre) humor, horror and many other genres, but those are not a focus. The Cars That Ate Paris is as much a western as it is a horror film, which is not to say that it doesn't have elements of the western genre--it does. But the tone is much more similar to, say, Bagdad Café (aka Out of Rosenheim, 1987) or Delicatessen (1991) (hmmm--notice the culinary metaphor motif). If you want to think of The Cars That Ate Paris as a horror film--and it is basically a surrealist nightmare--think of it as something like Maximum Overdrive (1986)/Trucks ((1997) meets Horror Hotel (aka City of the Dead, 1960), but made by David Lynch as a "realist" soap opera.

So what is the film about more literally? Well, it's best perhaps if you know as little about it before as possible, but on the other hand, it's a bit cryptic, and Peter Weir isn't exactly forthcoming with explanatory exposition--the film remains very open to interpretation to the end--so maybe a vague description won't hurt. The Paris of the title is not in France. It's instead a small, bucolic village in rural Australia. The town has quite a few "dirty secrets". The two primary secrets have to do with an automobile (part) obsession and a program of human experimentation. For the most part, they try to keep people out of the town, which has a very small population, but their twisted fetishes necessitate the occasional admission of outsiders, though in an unusual, involuntary manner. The film is centered on the story of one particular outsider, Arthur Waldo (Terry Camilleri), who manages to enter Paris relatively unscathed and who for unspecified reasons is worked into the fabric of the town. Arthur's arrival and integration roughly corresponds to a growing cleavage between generations, or at least between the status quo and a rebellious group of younger men, and he unwittingly serves as a catalyst to what amounts to a civil war.

Although in Peter Weir's video interview included on the DVD he refers to Arthur as an unsympathetic protagonist, I beg to differ. Camilleri plays Arthur as an enigmatically captivating simpleton--the most entrancing "blank" personality this side of Peter Sellers' Chauncey Gardiner in Being There (1979). For most of the film, Weir shuttles Arthur around like a pawn, enabling a metaphorical window through which to satirically examine small town (Australian) life. In this respect, The Cars That Ate Paris somewhat resembles the basic gist of Lars von Trier's Dogville (2003), except that unlike Dogville, The Cars That Ate Paris is a good film.

It's particularly funny how Arthur is shuttled into a variety of jobs, which he is assumed qualified for by a mere change of clothing (and very minor changes at that) and title. He's a doctor one moment, a parking enforcer the next. Weir works in satirical jabs towards everything from appealing to noble grand narratives about pioneer forefathers to the discrepancy between religious, private and political life, the myth of the well-adjusted nuclear family, the charade of public ceremonies, and even partakes in a slight Lord of the Flies-styled commentary on "progress".

But not everything is social critique. Weir is just as concerned with (and just as good at) imbibing in quirkiness for its own sake (although even that stuff we could read as a critique on social conventions if we wanted to) and see-sawing between a kind of community existentialist nightmare and an Our Town-like small village drama. And just in case that's too balanced, every so often he puts us in the middle of a spaghetti western, with the beginnings of mid-street showdowns. Much of the rebellious youth material can be interpreted as a western with hodge-podge automobiles, which is probably why those youths are the ones to don clothing that looks as if Weir borrowed it from the set of A Fistful of Dollars (aka Per un pugno di dollari, 1964).

The music is similarly disparate, ranging from techno-psychedelia that's something like Pink Floyd's "Time" to pensive contemporary-sounding themes, or the hilariously amateurish performance at the Paris Ball.

This is definitely not a film for all tastes. If you wouldn't typically like art-house films, you probably won't appreciate The Cars That Ate Paris, either, and even if you do typically like art-house films, you probably won't appreciate The Cars That Ate Paris unless you have a strong taste for the bizarre and macabre.

Of course the cars don't literally 'eat' Paris... This film was a good indication of what Peter Weir was capable of over twenty years before he made 'The Truman Show.' This is a strange movie, set in a weird town in a barren outback landscape where the normal rules of western society are being quietly ignored by the citizens for their own ends. There are peculiar parallels with 'Mad Max,' and I wonder if Australians are somehow daunted by the vastness of their own country, what it might conceal and their reliance on the automobile. 'The Cars That Ate Paris' is a gothic horror which takes a glancing swipe at consumerism and how it disassociates small communities. This is flagged right at the beginning with the opening parody of a cigarette commercial (also killers!) ending in the first wreck. There are lashings of black humour like this and a few things to say about religion and the cult of the car. A fine low-budget film.

One hour into this movie and I wasn't exactly sure what kind of movie it was trying to "be". It starts off as a smalltown horror mystery of sorts but Peter Weir saddles it with so much absurdist black comedy the mystery all but evaporates and we're looking at something that is more weird/awkward than mysterious/surreal, more slow-ponderous than slow-absorbing, large parts of it reminiscent of Aki Kaurismaki and his static shots, cynical humor, deadpan delivery, and smalltown squalor. By the end of it however, the movie seems to emerge as some sort of societal parable, an allegory to the repression of a close-knit society that values appearances and tradition more than anything else and which must bury secrets in its own backyard to do so, but there's so much distraction and incoherence the point is never made with any clarity or force.

At one point the score turns Morricone circa Once Upon a Time in the West and we get a showdown in the street and young men dressed with cowboy hats. We get Carmageddon-style cars circling the statue of a cannon like Comanches painted for war. We get the vague promise of a subplot about car crash survivors turned vegetables who are kept in the hospital of the small town and who later turn up in a ball masque dressed in hoods and carton boxes (a nod to Shock Corridor?), but it never goes anywhere. Peter Weir went on to make such remarkable films as Picnic at Hanging Rock and The Last Wave, and while this never reaches the hypnotic levels of those films, it's intriguing in its own quirky awkward way. It's like a movie struggling with itself, a cult classic trying to break free from the confines of a forgettable eccentricity.

Before Peter Weir went on to make 'A' class films such as The Dead Poets Society and Witness, he had a rather unsuccessful stint as a B-movie cult flick director. Despite the fact that he's become better known for his critically acclaimed films, his lesser cult films show much more imagination and are far more fun to watch. The Cars That Ate Paris works from a delicious premise. A small township in Australia named 'Paris' causes car accidents and salvages valuables from the wreckages. The town's currency is radios, clothes etc and this lucrative business is doing well for the town. When someone survives a crash, they usually end up mentally disabled, which is good for the town as it stops them from being caught by the pesky insurance investigator. This is all well and good until George and brother Arthur drive into town. George is killed in the crash, but Arthur survives it; pretty much unharmed. Nobody has ever left Paris before, which prompts the Mayor to take the young man into his family home. This is something that will go on to have massive repercussions on the township of Paris...

Peter Weir deliciously blends several elements into the plot line. On one hand, we have the incredibly surreal idea of a whole town killing people for their valuables. This blends with the whole crazy cult idea, and this in turn mixes with the idea of the things that people will do to survive. Weir has speckled the movie with loads of great imagery, such as the old women who's job it is to take the valuables from the cars stuffing clothes down their top, and the devilish cornerstone of society, the Mayor, overseeing all the horror. Despite all the film's good elements, however, Weir has failed to make the film a complete whole. It may be down to inexperience, but while he's busy creating his atmosphere; the characters have been forgotten about, and this makes it difficult to care for them, and the story beyond an aesthetic level. There is much to like about this movie, and it's definitely worth seeing for the imagery alone; but it's hard to really love it, and that stops me from giving the film a high rating. I still recommend the movie, however, as it's well worth seeing.