The Cars that ate Paris—Peter Weir

Australia

By far the best Australian film I have seen. The film started off to boos and hisses from the audience at what looked distinctly like a commercial—sports car, attractive young couple, the flash of a cigarette packet and can of coke on the screen—but then something strange happened—the car crashed over a cliff and lay mangled at the bottom. The hisses quickly turned to admiration as the film got under way. Paris is a dusty little town somewhere in Australia where the inhabitants make their living by causing stray visitors to have stray fatal car accidents and then stripping them and their vehicle of anything of value. Any survivors are turned into "veggies" by the local doctor. The town is run by the Mayor, whose adopted children were saved from a "Tragic car accident" in which their parents were killed. Paris is controlled by "the cars"—the young men of the town in their hotted up cars which seem almost to have personalities of their own. "The cars" get a bit out of hand so the Mayor orders one of the cars to be burnt as a lesson. The whole town then erupts into violence as the cars have their revenge. The young men, although driving the cars seem to lose control and the cars take over destroying everything.

As well as being a strong attack on our automobile society the film displayed a strong sense of ironic comedy. A film well worth seeing.