Apparently, this has been a popular year for political pieces. Contrasting against last year’s Oscar winners such as LOTR: The Return of the King, Lost in Translation and Master and Commander, this year is looking rather somber.
This year, films such as The Constant Gardener, Syriana and Crash seem to be getting all the attention, the last of which concerns us today.
From Paul Haggis, writer/producer of Million Dollar Baby, comes Crash, a sociological portrait of racial stereotypes at work amidst a cross-section of Los Angeles citizens. With Crash, Haggis has taken a seat in the director’s chair, and, although the filmmaking and acting is near impeccable, the ultimate effect of the film leaves something to be desired.
The film opens with a car crash, which within a minute is forgotten. The passenger of the car that was hit is actually a police officer arriving at the scene of a crime. A body has been found.
The film then leaves the scene behind, and the audience is barraged with a series of racially-charged encounters: two young black men emerging from a restaurant complaining about the discriminatory service, a wealthy white man and woman having their car stolen by two young black men, a Middle-Eastern man in a gun shop trying to speak English well enough to make a purchase from a gruff Italian, a white policeman harassing a black couple for no apparent reason, and the list goes on.
What the viewer eventually begins discovering is that each individual is interconnected somehow, and difficult family or economic situations are made worse by the preconceived racial stereotypes. Everyone harbors some sort of bias, Haggis seems to be saying, regardless of upbringing or intention.
Crash is more of a collage than a story, each piece a different person’s experience. Though some names are larger than others on the cast list for Crash, there are not really any main characters. Each individual in the story is as significant (or insignificant) as the next, so the telling of the story feels seems more to blanket its subject than focus on a solution.
In the film, there is no solution presented, no reason given for having hope that someday society will be better than it is. Even those characters with the best of intentions find themselves explosively exposed to their prejudices.
Additionally, for a film that attempts to speak out against stereotypes, Crash is surprisingly teeming with them. Nearly every character, rather than being depicted as an important individual being victimized by stereotypes, he or she seem simply to be living them out one way or another.
Perhaps this rampant use of stock characters is a technique that Haggis is using to further illuminate his cause, but overall the shallow depiction of the characters, a total lack of unique perspective, and a far too predictable unraveling at the end makes Crash far too contrived to be as spectacular as advertised.
Are people really always prejudiced? Of course. Everyone sees life through the lenses of his or her own experiences.
Hopefully, however, by being aware of them, people can avoid the situations and problems that they create for themselves in Crash.
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