Raven’s Range
Blather around a virtual range

Thursday, 10 July 2008 21:13

Movie review: Crash

Filed in Blog, Reviews

Crash starts with a crash…quite literally. There’s been a rear-ending incident, one of the victims is philosophizing about how nobody in L.A. ever touches one another so they have to crash into one another to feel connected, and the other loses her cool and starts having a racially slurring fight with the Asian person who rear-ended them.

The scene jumps to a pair of African Americans, one of whom is spouting about prejudice and noting that the woman walking along with her man takes his arm, protectively, as they pass. The other guy thinks it’s nonsense. Together, though, they hijack the couple’s car.

Later, as the angry and upset victim rants, it ensues that yes, she gripped her husband’s arm because she felt threatened by the African Americans. The man, meanwhile, is distressed that the thieves had to be black. He’s a politician, hoping for the African-American vote, and this is going to cause him problems.

This masterful movie takes a diverse selection of different family units and weaves their lives into one another. Perhaps weaving is the wrong word; they collide, maybe even crash. This movie is about grinding, ugly racism right across the board. Pretty much every ethnic group seems to be covered and each one is shown at its worst. Seemingly unrelated events crop up later in the movie so that every scene builds on something earlier on.

Crash makes three major points. Firstly, people can be really, really foul. I don’t mean bad habits, I mean nasty to one another. Secondly, everyone is interconnected. And third, nothing is cast in stone. As the plot unfolds, some of the characters have a chance to redeem themselves. Others, more well-meaning, mess up royally. Yet others get a hefty dose of karma, and some make startling realizations about themselves. The motivations of each character become clearer; what seems at first glance to be just plain evil has a basis in prior events and complex emotions.

This is a scary movie because it seems real. It shows the worst, and the best, of humanity; it shows things that most likely do happen in a world I know is out there, but don’t like at all. And yet it’s not afraid to show these things. It’s not afraid to show that everyone has a better side. And it’s quite probably the best, most powerful movie I’ve watched all year.