Look, despite common belief, these films are not both about people who have sex with cars. Only one of them is. However, they do both involve sex and car crashes as closely linked themes - so making a double bill out of them is only natural. On the 11th of May, we will be showing David Cronenberg's Crash (1996) and Julia Ducournau's Titane (2021) as a long-awaited double bill.

We will start with Crash (1996), based on J.G. Ballard's novel of the same name (who believed the film was actually better than his book), which follows a man who becomes embroiled in a community of symphorophiliacs - that is, people who are aroused by disasters such as car crashes - after surviving one of his own. This prompted extreme controversy at its time of release, so much so that its screening at Cannes prompted boos, walkouts, and alleged near-sabotage from that year's jury president Francis Ford Coppola (although it still won the Special Jury Prize - and is a favourite of Scorsese, so who's really winning?). This will begin at 12:30pm.

We will then have an hour's break, and return at around 3:15pm with Titane (2021). Hot off the heels of her coming-of-age cannibal debut feature Raw (2016), Ducournau returned with the tale of a woman who, after experiencing a car crash as a child that left her with a titanium plate in her head, conceives a baby with a car and promptly goes into hiding. There is much more to the story than that, but that's the most relevant bit. Ducournau became the first woman to win the Palme d'Or as a solo director for this film, and while several critics like Mark Kermode positively compared it to Crash, it was distinctly less controversial than its thematic predecessor 25 years on.

Both of these films will be screened on Saturday 11th May in MAL B36 (room 36 on the basement level of the main Birkbeck building on Malet Street). Tickets are free (you can come to one or both films with one ticket!) and current students and alumni are welcome.

See you there!

WARNING: these films both feature gore mostly of the body horror variety, and nudity/sex scenes. More information can be found in the IMDb parents guide for both films.