Crash

I saw this movie couple of weeks ago, only after it got the three Oscars, including that for best picture. The movie, based on the central theme of ‘Racism’, has a slightly complex storyline with impressive cast.

The movie tries to answer several questions and I must say it is highly successful in it. After the Oscar award for this 2004 movie, any sort of appreciation will sound cliché, so I will save on it. I watched this movie twice, back to back, and allowed myself sufficient time to grasp it. Racism is such a sensitive and hot issue that most of time we form a pre-opinion before dealing with anything related with racism.

This movie has several characters and their daily lives are entwined. All of them meet each another in one or other circumstances, each incident has something that stands out and answers one of the questions. Racism is nothing but abject manifestation of discrimination and not restricted to typical black white portrayal. It amplifies this by showing 36 hours of life of a white DA and her wife. An African American detective and her Latino partner. A Persian man mistaken for an Arab. A Mexican locksmith. A Korean couple. A black television director and her wife. In the whole duration of movie all of their lives gets interlocked with each other and explains their actions.

The idea is to show how everyone is a human and gets carried by their own prejudices. These prejudices take the shape of racism. Personal interest and petty gains can make one turn blind eye to racism or engineer pseudo tolerance. A racist person can turn into a victim and sometime a mistake from a tolerant person can take racist color. Circumstances can make a racist person do compassionate act and might turn a victim to trust the victimizer. Racism is fundamentally due to human nature of getting carried away due to anger, bad experiences and complex prejudices. But, inside us, all have the same heart. This movie says this all without adopting a didactic tone rather with seamless integration of incidents in lives of different individuals.

I am sure anyone who watches this movie will go for introspection.