Crash (2004)

Let’s not go to Los Angeles. Tis a hateful, violent, racist place.

Loathe as I am to agree with the Academy, this film blew my proverbial socks off. It’s a fast-moving, character piece following a dozen or so denizens of L.A. focusing on race and the subtle, and also less subtle, interplay between them as they are involved in car crashes, police investigations and personal relationships. Different types of racism are profiled from overt, outright hatred to more nuanced, but powerful, forms like institutional bias.

Odious characters are partially redeemed, seemingly ‘good’ people commit the worst atrocities. No one is spared in this brilliant script as personal and social tragedies fly by thick and fast. The mess that is Los Angelean life is put under the microscope and each act requires a mental dance to figure out the ethics of the many protagonists. Fittingly enough, there’s no ‘black or white” only many varying shades of grey.

Paul Haggis’ direction is similar to Paul Thomas Anderson’s in Magnolia, but due to its core message and convincing characters instead of stereotypes it exceeds Magnolia by a long way. Compare and contrast Magnolia’s rain of frogs with Crash’s snow flurry as a uniting element towards the end. The frogs symbolise the random, unpredictable turns of life, whereas the snow can be taken in many different ways; oppressive, cold, beautiful, all-encompassing, dangerous. It’s even an important factor in many car collisions. The way the characters connect is also all too believable even in a city where famously no-one meets each other in the street.

While there are no concrete answers proposed to this deeply-entrenched mess of a situation there are hints that focusing on and enjoying each other’s humanity rather than fixating on ethnic make-up is the only way to gain any kind of personal freedom and improve the situation. While this may be a little clichéd, the consequences of ignoring this message are clearly depicted and are enough to force even the most passive viewer to examine their own ideas.

This is one of the best films I’ve seen in a long while. Impressively, for a movie that tackles such complex subject matter, it still remains highly watchable, moving and not one bit ‘preachy’ or patronising. Get yourself down to Blockbuster and rent it now, just mind how you drive…