Anurag Jain's Blog
Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Movie Review: Crash (2004) 
I wrote this sometime back (March) on Crash (2004) :
 
There's a lot of debate on whether Crash deserved an Oscar over Brokeback Mountain. Well, awards do not define the quality of a film. And Crash and Brokeback Mountain are both testimony to that, albeit in kinda opposite ways.

Crash is an interesting superimposition of the issue of racial discrimination on some real slick editing (Yes, it won Oscar for Editing too! Reminds me of the non-linear editing of Memento). However, maybe its because I am outside the cultural boundaries of the country of production, or maybe its something else, but there are frames in the movie where its a little difficult to understand the issue-at-hand (Just like 'American Beauty'. Never underdstood what was so beautiful about that movie really? Maybe be it was the mono-culture that I fail to comprehend, and something that is definitely a concept counter to a community-culture like Ryze). This is a movie which confuses the audience - and I think deliberately and rightly so - on the usually 'black-and-white' issues of good & bad, right & wrong.

Having said that, Crash is a brilliant movie that comes at an apt time (Rosa Parks passed away in 2005) to remind the nation of issues at home and to educate the rest of the world about the social issues and to force them to think about similar issues in their homeland.

Not to take the credit away from Crash, amongst the contemporary Hollowood depictions of racial discrimination, I would put American History X (1998) (Anyone who has AMX in their top five list, please come over for a free cup of coffee!). Also, Amistad would be another strong contender, which although a contemporary piece, deals with a racial saga set in much earlier times.
1 comments                                                                                              

Comments:
what i liked about CRASH too was the way the story line all fell into place - how all the different elements / characters were connected in a jigsaw puzzle kind of way.... i think that was brilliant!
 
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