MIFF 2024 Film Review - The Cars That Ate Paris (4K Restoration)
Images courtesy of Common State.
Peter Weir’s second feature The Cars That Ate Paris (1974) has an underlying power, and it’s both due to how raw it is as a cultural and industrial satire, and how much Peter Weir’s delicate emotional trademarks manage to bleed themselves into the expression of this bizarre premise. The film follows the fearful and anxious Arthur (Terry Camilleri), who is deathly afraid of driving after surviving an accident near the rural Australian town of Paris that kills his brother George. As Arthur is taken in by the town he quickly discovers that the people of Paris deliberately cause these car accidents, building their entire economy around this bizarre practice. The victims are covered up and hidden, survivors lobotomized for horror experiments, personal belongings and car parts are scavenged by the townspeople, and there exist stores that only accept tires as payment for food and household items. Most strikingly, the hooligan youth of the town joyride around in kitted-out Mad Max-esque vehicles, one being “a gaudy silver beast that looks like a gigantic mechanical hedgehog, its chassis covered with enormous spikes that impale anything in its the way”, often shot in a way that obscures the drivers and indicates vehicular sentience à la Duel (Steven Spielberg, 1971) . Arthur’s navigation of the town is the heart of the film just as much as the weirdly gentle way the film paints a satirical picture of how dangerous it was to be a driver or pedestrian in 1970s Australia.
Alluded to explicitly and satirically in The Cars That Ate Paris is the positing that Australia, especially rural Australia, has become so ridiculously acclimatised to fatal car accidents that entire economies now revolve around their inevitability, and structures exist to facilitate and encourage them. This extends to every facet of the film; the Mayor (John Meillon) remarks on the annoyance of pedestrians when Oliver confides with him about a prior accident where he fatally ran someone over, a radio in the film quietly and blankly states that 82 people have been killed on Australian roads in a single weekend, and Oliver is even promoted to a Parking Officer position in the town (I see structures that facilitate parking laws and guidelines as indicative of encouraging car dependency). It manifests in the aforementioned youth whose violent tendencies and tension with the cult-like leaders of the town threaten to spell destruction for Paris. This sort of political satire is not unlike that of other 1970s Australian films–the Mad Max series provides commentary on the inherent fascism of car dependency quite directly in the first film, and more abstractly in the sequels–but it’s how Weir expresses these topics that makes the film special.
It’s a premise that lends itself naturally to a grindhouse premise, a schlocky presentation of guts and gore with very kinetic, exploitative sensibilities around cult filmmaking - the sort of thing Tarantino might cite as an influence - and a worse director might fall into this trap of highlighting the ostensibly chaotic energy of car accidents, but Weir is not that guy, and the film is all the more better for it. The director of Dead Poets Society (1989) shoots and edits The Cars That Ate Paris as if he is shooting and editing a slow burn drama. At times it felt as though I was watching his following feature Picnic at Hanging Rock (1976), which could not have a more dissimilar premise. Characteristic of his later films such as The Last Wave (1977) and The Truman Show (1998), he regards the premise and setting with utmost delicacy and emotional sincerity, but in a manner of which retains the industrial and cultural satire. The use of long takes, intimate blocking and quiet performances (mostly–Bruce Spence and Chris Haywood are characteristically extroverted) blindsided me and created this relatively steady momentum that never indulges itself in tonally exploitative filmmaking–never feeling remotely frantic. Even during the film’s disastrous action-packed titular ending, Weir is careful to restrain himself and keep the evil heart of the town at the forefront. It’s as if he can’t help but make this film the way he wants to do it, like he can’t ‘turn off’ this sentimentality to the slow movement of filmmaking. It feels indicative of how he regards the satirical components of the film–where someone like George Miller sees it as a violent expression of danger, Weir views it in a more sombre manner.
Sometimes Weir’s sensibilities are a pitfall for directionless threads, meandering aimlessly with little rhythm. Some viewers may be turned off by some certain depictions and language used in the film; the mayor owns a statue depicting an Aboriginal stereotype, and the way the film depicts and describes the lobotomized victims of the town is quite harsh. It is quintessentially a 20th century Australian production, with all its flaws and outdated sensibilities, and one must take this in stride when evaluating the film. In any case, the town’s own sensibilities to these topics of race and disability are intrinsic to the satire, they exploit not just car accident victims but every victim of fascist colonialist structures. Whilst watching The Cars That Ate Paris for the first time at the Capitol Theatre for MIFF (a new 4K restoration courtesy of the NSFA no less!) I was reminded so much of the ugly core of the country depicted in the film, an exploitative fascist society that festers off the misfortunes that befall victims of colonialist structures. But I also bore witness to how wondrous it is to hear Terry Camilleri excitedly introduce us to what we’re about to witness, and celebrate a flawed yet earnest piece of Australian filmmaking, especially when that all-timer of an ending hits.
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The Cars That Ate Paris is screening as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival, running in cinemas and online August 8th-25th.
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