The film ‘Crash’ begins and ends with an automobile accident, but this isn’t necessarily what the title is referring to.
The theme of the film is clearly the collisions between the various racial archetypes in L.A., one of the biggest melting pots in the world. Characters of various racial backgrounds come together over the course of two days and fail to get along.
Crash isn’t exactly an easy film to sit through because it alternately makes the viewer feel for the various characters as they encounter racial profiling and then we see the very same people reciprocate. The line between the discriminated and the racist is seeming thin, as the film makes the point that victims of racism can learn to discriminate. While most films try to get the viewer to identify with at least one character, Crash is more of an unflinching look at the good and bad in all of us.
Crash boasts one of those ensemble casts that seems to include everyone but Kevin Bacon. Sandra Bullock would be the most recognizable to most audiences and Don Cheadle (Hotel Rwanda) perhaps the most talented. Also look for exceptional turns by Ryan Phillipe (Cruel Intentions), Matt Dillon and Thandie Newton (Beloved).
Written and directed by Paul Haggis (writer on Million Dollar Baby), Crash owes quite a debt to the films of Robert Altman, especially ‘Short Cuts’. Both films are set in LA and feature intersecting characters occupying dubious moral ground. Altman’s films are more nuanced and his characters more realistic while Haggis’ seem to be forced and his storytelling is more emotional.
While Haggis provides closure to most of the story threads, he doesn’t provide any easy answers to the intrinsic problem of racism, well as he shouldn’t. Stereotyping is almost a necessity when one encounters strangers of any kind in a large urban environment. But it is fair to say that Haggis wants the individual viewer to look beyond the superficial and try to figure out how much stereotypes influence us every day and examine the universal nature of racism.
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