The Cars That Ate Paris
A mini-opera based on the film of the same name by Peter Weir
Stage adaptation and direction by Douglas Horton
Presented by Chamber Made Opera at Ensign Smash Repairs, 610 Smith Street, Clifton Hill, Melbourne, until July 25
Reviewed by Peter Boyle
It no longer takes imagination to conceive of a society in which the environment, social life, morality — indeed, nearly everything — has been distorted to facilitate the relentless trade in cars: we live in one.
When Peter Weir's macabre film about Paris (a fictional NSW country town, where accidents are secretly engineered to feed the town's trade in second-hand spare parts for cars and medical experimentation on accident victims) came out in 1975, its message seemed ahead of its time. Yet this was a moment when cities were being planned around the almighty car, homes were being levelled for new freeways and the Australian Ugliness was summed up by Robin Boyd as seemingly endless streets lined with gaudy car sale yards.
A decade and a half down the track, more and more people can see that the problem is not just one of arty-farty aesthetics vs good times for all who have wheels. We choke on the fumes, the road accident toll beats most wartime casualty rates, public transport systems are being destroyed, we're hooked on cars and the big car manufacturers are taking off with the jobs they once created.
Peter Weir's apocalyptic statement has been revived in an original form by Chamber Made Opera, a group established in 1988 to explore the possibilities of contemporary music theatre and opera productions. The venue, a smash repair yard, is perfect. The baroque combination of music and theatre, performed professionally, successfully conveys the sinister madness that grips the folk of Paris and slowly engulfs Arthur, a passing motorist who is unfortunate to survive one of the rigged accidents.
Chamber Made Opera, on its first year of annual funding from the Australia Council and the Victorian Ministry for the Arts, is succeeding in its objective of broadening the accessibility of opera. The Cars That Ate Paris presents such a relentless stream of original sound and images that it holds your interest even if at times it's hard to make out what exactly is being sung.