The Cars that Ate Paris

(Home Vision, 1974)

By Brian Thomas

Not at all the sci-fi horror campfest the title suggests, but instead an early social black-comedy from Australian director Peter Weir. 

During some sort of international economic crisis, the remote community of Paris, Australia, takes desperate measures. The townspeople conspire to cause autos that stray onto the road into town to crash, then swarm in to plunder anything and everything they can from the wreck. Any injured survivors are given a quick lobotomy at the town hospital. The status quo is disturbed when crash survivor Arthur (Terry Camilleri) is taken in and adopted by Paris’ mayor (John Meillon).

Given the lowly position of Parking Attendant, Arthur becomes an annoyance to the town’s teenagers, who have nothing better to do than cruise around staging crash stunts in monstrous patchwork jalopies.

During a “Pioneer Day” ball, the cars rebel against their harsh treatment (symbolically, at least), and go on a rampage of destruction, during which Arthur makes a personal breakthrough.

While not coherent enough to be totally satisfying, Cars is offbeat enough to be compelling, with its imagery and underlying meditations on machine culture sticking with the viewer long after.

DVD also includes Weir’s 1979 TV thriller The Plumber.