Being: with Statham

I've been thinking a lot about the Crank films lately. Mostly I've been thinking a lot about the worldview of the sequel, a brazen, difficult film. Seemingly entropic, much more than the violently one-tracked trajectory of the first film, High Voltage escalates Chev Chelios's esxistential plight by graduating his fuel from the personal (adrenaline) to the inter-personal (electricity). This model was likely not developed by writer/directors Neveldine/Taylor to consciously inspect the human condition--I'm not sure that consciousness has much to do with it at all. The Crank films explore existence as pure physical form.

The Crank films are indirectly about the ways in which we choose to live amongst each other, physically. Latent racism, deviant sex, homophobia, the ghettos-to-Beverley-Hills, the breadth of Crank's vision of the civic practices, not theories, of a multi-cultural Metropolis is inspiring. To suggest that the filmmakers themselves are racist seems an absurdity, although that depends on how realistic one's definition of "racist" is. When I see Crank, I am seeing not just a depiction of the tensions of the kaleidoscopic American citizenry in action, but also a production that incorporates and invigorates and defines this tapestry. Frequently in troubling terms (Bai Ling is very difficult to get used to--just in general, but especially in High Voltage), but those terms can be empowering. That is a defense to mount elsewhere (and you can probably count on more Crank-centric posts in the near future), but I think it wouldn't be a stretch to say, whether you love the films or not, whether they offend you or not, that they embody a unique degree of cultural symbiosis that allows for the exploration of active symbiotic dynamics within its hectic vision of the world.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Davey Morrison, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, Sven Patrick Svensson of Sadness? Euphoria?, and William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden. This week's theme: Symbiosis'.