Weir’s feature debut is a singular, esoteric look at how everything is just so goddamn weird.
This summer, we will be doing a watch through of the filmography of Peter Weir. Right now we are going through his Australian films, which are categorically stranger and more menacing than his later more mainstream American output.
I was anticipating a bit more of a separation between Weir’s work in “Homesdale” and his first feature, the cult classic The Cars That Ate Paris. Paris has something of a fabled following, a film that was something of a rare object but beloved by many who saw it. Amongst those verbose lovers was none other than Stanley Kubrick, who personally ranked it above Citizen Kane in his list of favorite films.
But in many ways, it is very easy to see precisely why Paris appealed to Kubrick. It has a sinister sense of humor to it, akin to what he tapped into most clearly in Dr. Strangelove and Clockwork Orange, but runs just beneath the surface in most of his work. And much like Kubrick, Weir’s early lens seeks to find truth in exaggeration. Just like Homesdale, The Cars That Ate Paris is an outsized brutal satire that is equally deeply empathetic and nastily cynical.
The main benefit it has over Homesdale over it’s expanded time frame giving its themes space to breathe is that it is beautiful. Leaving his scratched up 16mm film days behind, Weir opts to shoot the Australian countryside with a sense of wonder, capturing beautiful color photography that luxuriates in its lush setting all while threading the whole thing with menace. The opening sequence is a perfect encapsulation of this: an idyllic road trip between a beautiful romantic couple through small town Australia, intentionally borrowing the ersatz perfection of commercials. But this then climaxes in a sudden, violent car crash, a bloody end to an otherwise perfect day. Beauty and brutality, living side by side, is the common refrain of Paris, with a healthy dose of observed absurdity on the side.
After this jarring opening, we see the routine all unfold again. A pair of brothers, Arthur and George, set through a similar road trip, only for the car to once again go out of control. Drive George dies at the site of the crash, but Arthur (played by Terry Camilleri) survives. He quickly finds himself sucked into the world of Paris. For the record, if it wasn’t clear yet, the Paris in question is not the location in France, but a fictional Australian village, lost to time and nostalgia.
The true nature of Paris, what is going on and why precisely car accidents are so frequent, unfolds to Arthur as he gets embedded into Paris. He soon finds himself adopted by Mayor Len Kelly (John Meillon), who attempts to find somewhere for Arthur to get comfortable. Whenever Arthur attempts to escape, he has to face his own fear and trauma surrounding driving, and if he tries to leave on foot, a group of punk youth threaten him with cars that have been modded out to be covered in spikes.
The specifics from here gets into the unraveling reality of what is exactly under the hood in The Cars That Ate Paris, but suffice to say that Paris is a town that is burdened under a misplaced sense of self-importance. The townspeople laud themselves for being pioneers, but in reality they are vultures who live off the misery of other people. And as time has gone on, the morals and standards these people have grown accustomed to has created a rotting at the base that, with the newest generation, reaches a boiling point.
What keeps Paris from being straight folk horror is its very off kilter sense of humor. Multiple scenes take place at the city council, which consists of four yes men sitting beneath a ten foot tall pulpit where the mayor makes proclamations; all of these scenes are shot from as low as possible, giving the visual impression that room stretches on forever. It’s visually ridiculous, and Weir injects these sorts of outrageous visual flair that cut the tension of the film’s most dire moment. But make no mistake, this is a sinister undercurrent that is the motor of the film’s heart.
A lot of the themes of Paris will be littered throughout Weir’s work going forward. Chief among them is the key conceit of a lot of Weir’s work: the individual facing down the absurdity of society’s demands. In the case of Homesdale and The Cars That Ate Paris, the ring of the society is rather small. But as Weir will go on, it becomes more clear that the scope of who the individual faces down will become wider and wider. Here the menace is localized to a single small town that is run on violence and grift. As Weir goes on, the lens expands, until the whole of everything is shown to be a prison meant to be broken away from.
Next Week: Widely regarded as Weir’s Australian masterwork, we look at the quiet discomfort of Picnic at Hanging Rock.
