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Crush

Film, 1992 (Drama)

 Crush

Synopsis

Crush is a tale of simmering sexuality set in Rotorua. Moral or sexual ambiguity pervades the narrative of conflicted desire. Its mix of blocked-up writer, spurting mud-pools, infatuated teen, eel farm, American femme fatale (Marcia Gay Harden), noir motels, limp Pongas, twisted metal and wheelchairs, plays out in a symbolic NZ landscape not seen before (or since). Director Alison Maclean's debut feature (co-written with Anne Kennedy, produced by Bridget Ikin) played in competition at the Cannes Film Festival.

Background

A Perspective by Catherine Bisley 19.10.2008

In the darkly humorous Crush, the debut feature of Alison Maclean, Marcia Gay Harden (fresh from the Coen Brothers' gangster flick Miller's Crossing) plays Lane, a sexually ...

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Quotes

..a scary fairy tale about primal, warring female energies...as the film's nominal femme fatale, Lane (Marcia Gay Harden) doesn't pack a gun as much as an attitude - mocking, predatory, carnal, malign - that makes you speculate what chronic neurosis is impelling her, though you also like her for the way her wildness exposes the other adults' intellectual pretensions. 

Awards

Festivals include
1992 Cannes (in competition), 1992 Toronto Festival of Festivals, London, Puerto Rico, Sydney, Cambridge