{"id":23091,"date":"2024-04-08T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-08T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/?p=23091"},"modified":"2024-04-08T18:35:06","modified_gmt":"2024-04-09T01:35:06","slug":"peter-weir-gets-in-gear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/peter-weir-gets-in-gear\/","title":{"rendered":"Peter Weir Gets in Gear"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When Peter Weir announced his retirement last month at a film festival in Paris, it had been 14 years since his last feature, 2010\u2019s The Way Back<\/em>. Still, his ardent admirers held out hope that he would sit in the director\u2019s chair once more. Now on the verge of turning 80 (his birthday is August 21), Weir claims he doesn\u2019t have the energy to mount a film, which makes sense considering he never took on a project that didn\u2019t pose some challenge (physical, mental, logistical) over the four decades he was actively pursuing them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As one of the directors in the vanguard of the Australian New Wave, alongside Bruce Beresford, Phillip Noyce, Fred Schepisi, and Gillian Armstrong (plus their Ozploitation contemporaries), Weir got his start with a passel of idiosyncratic shorts and television films he wrote, directed, and sometimes acted in when he was in the his mid-20s. His professional breakthrough came in 1971, when he contributed a segment to the omnibus film Three to Go<\/em> and made the short feature Homesdale<\/em>. Both won awards from the Australian Film Institute, setting the stage for his leap to cinema screens with 1974\u2019s The Cars That Ate Paris<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Partially funded by the Australian Film Development Corporation, which was established to bolster its lagging film industry, Cars<\/em> demonstrated that homegrown directors could prove as much of a challenge to tourism as outsiders like Ted Kotchoff and Nicolas Roeg (whose Wake in Fright<\/em> and Walkabout<\/em> painted the place and its people in unflattering lights). The inspiration for Cars<\/em>, however, came to Weir while he was driving through France on holiday and was stopped by two men at a barricade who directed him down a detour, which he took without questioning it. There was ultimately nothing sinister about the encounter, but as he turned it over in his mind, Weir envisioned a way to make it so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The premise of Cars<\/em> \u2013 a small, isolated community that causes car wrecks, strips the vehicles for parts, and has any survivors lobotomized \u2013 is also prefigured by a scene in Homesdale<\/em>. In it, the manager of the title establishment, which bills itself as \u201ca new experiment in togetherness,\u201d regales his guests with the story of a miner who faked road accidents. \u201cUsed his motorcycle to kill four wives,\u201d he explains, and has one of his assistants (played by Weir) demonstrate how. This is in response to one guest\u2019s assertion that, as a policeman, he had seen many exciting things, including road accidents. \u201cAccidents? Oh, I don\u2019t believe in accidents,\u201d he replies. \u201cNothing is an accident.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The same is true in Paris, which bases its entire economy around them. How it works is viewed through the oft-bewildered eyes of Arthur Waldo (Terry Camilleri), whose brother took the wrong turn-off while he was dozing in the passenger seat. (The desperation on the part of Paris\u2019s residents to lure unwary travelers is made plain by the array of signs planted on the side of the road pointing in the direction of their literal tourist trap.) While both brothers are declared dead to the authorities, Arthur\u2019s life is spared and he\u2019s taken under the wing of Mayor Len Kelly (John Meillon, a familiar face from Wake in Fright<\/em> and Walkabout<\/em>, later of Crocodile Dundee<\/em> and its sequel), who is eager to integrate this \u201cnew Parisian\u201d into their micro-society. His reasons for doing so aren\u2019t completely altruistic, though, since the town\u2019s rebellious youth (who dress like western outlaws) have taken to fashioning cast-off cars into demolition-derby vehicles and terrorizing their elders. Having another adult on the side of order is imperative, but appointing Arthur parking officer and giving him a uniform isn\u2019t the same as vesting him with any real authority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By far, the most lethal-looking vehicle that rolls into town for the climactic showdown is the spiky Volkswagen Beetle that became the film\u2019s signature image. Once the carnage commences \u2013 timed to coincide with Paris\u2019s much-trumpeted Pioneer Ball \u2013 it\u2019s a given that someone will wind up impaled on it. Contradicting the Mayor\u2019s assertion that \u201cnobody leaves Paris,\u201d the mass exodus that follows the orgy of destruction (during which Weir delivers the grisly genre goods) marks the end of this misguided social experiment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While it\u2019s as rough around the edges as first features tend to be, Cars<\/em> never runs short on ideas and is beautifully shot. It also finds Weir exploring themes he returned to over the course of his career: the isolated community mistrustful of outsiders (Witness<\/em>), the disaffection of youth (Dead Poets Society<\/em>), the unmoored feeling of a crash survivor (Fearless<\/em>), naive innocents manipulated by authority figures playing God (The Truman Show<\/em>). In spite of the muted response Cars<\/em> received from audiences and critics, it paved the way for his next feature, 1975\u2019s Picnic at Hanging Rock<\/em>, which was a triumph and became a standard bearer of the Australian New Wave. From there, he was off to the races.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Cars That Ate Paris\u201d is streaming on the <\/em>Criterion Channel<\/em><\/a> as part of its <\/em>Australian New Wave collection<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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