While beauty can be found in its end form, the art of destruction is more reflective of primalness than grace. And, as centers for destruction as a spectator sport, the demolition derbies of New Zealand defy the present health and safety standard to satisfy a masochistic urge for ruination: a modern-day gladiator match in which victory lies in emerging from the wreckage.

Yet, for director Josiah Watson and cinematographer Jake Munro, spinning out from the high-speed collisions, and the unbridled energy of spectators, New Zealand’s speedway tracks become an unlikely landscape for poetry in motion. As the cars skim across the track, balletic choreography directs their movements, observed up-close in short film, Fun City. Shot with a raw, naturalistic quality, the film explores the intersection between chaos and beauty in the most unexpected of places, casting the competing cars as dancers with the dirt track as their stage.

Heaving smoke and oil, yet moving with a fluid agility, the cars’ spontaneous choreography projects a sense of emotion and elegance under Watson’s direction, the movements they trace within the arena set to the soundtrack of John Barry’s ‘Fun City’. Taken from Midnight Cowboy, the score draws parallels between the film and the themes explored here, aligning on the deconstruction of masculinity from deep within its heartlands. In a culture so synonymous with brutality and destruction, in spite of its costs, Fun City seeks new meaning from the mindlessness, following the fragmented beauty that emerges among the dust clouds.