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In the Canadian art-house tradition of Dead Ringers, Exotica, and Love & Human Remains, the country's spring movie offerings -- the girl-meets-corpse love story of Kissed and the auto-wreck aphrodisia of Crash -- seem designed to prove again that if a fine line exists between art and Showgirls, it just might be the 49th parallel.
Toronto director Atom Egoyan, whose 1994 Exotica played on one man's schoolgirl fetish, credits shoestring budgets with Canada's knack for perversion: ''There's simply less money at stake, so we're free to tackle our demons.''
NewsRadio's Dave Foley, who started out as one of the Kids in the Hall in his native Ontario, has another theory: Movies ''are how we deal with our dread. We're afraid of sex. We're obsessed with courtesy, and sex presents endless possibilities to offend.'' So this isn't a case of art imitating Canadian life? ''A typical sexual encounter,'' says Foley, ''would go like this: 'My, aren't you naked.' 'Well, it's my pleasure to be naked.' 'No, no, the pleasure of your nakedness is all mine.' It's polite voyeurism.''
And others are watching. ''The more we make films we think no one would get but us, the greater the response outside of Canada,'' enthuses Egoyan. So does perversion prompt a twang of national pride? ''Our hotel porn channels are uncensored,'' adds Foley. ''Americans are always impressed by that.''
