'Crash' Course On Racism

Directed by Paul Haggis, Crash was release in 2004. The subjects mirrors the reality of life. Discrimination and the divide in the society. A strong lacing of Racism that intertwines the lives of all the characters in the movie. Brilliant!

There are these two young black boys who are on the streets to teach the white a lesson. Mugging, car jacking. It doesn't seem that they themselves would have been subjected to racism, but are skewed by legacy effect.

There is a District Attorney who like a good politician wants to keep his vote bank intact. Going an extra mile to ensure that 'minorities' are happy. His wife on the other hand is very uncomfortable with the minorities to the extent that she despises them.

A cop who finds it difficult to get his father, suffering from Urinary Tract Infection, treated thanks to a very unaccepting black HMO administrator. Upset, the cop molests, in the name of enforcing law, a black lady right infront of her Director husband.

The Director, though black, has grown to be accepted by the 'white' society. His wife unable to bear the humiliation caused to her, chides him that he has forgotten his 'roots'.

Then there is this Persian family (not Arab). With a probable risk of their store being looted the man buys a gun. When the locksmith advises him to change the door instead of complaining about lock, he abuses the person only to find that his shop has been looted in the night. As insurance company rejects his claim sighting negligence, he wants a revenge on the locksmith.

The locksmith probably has been a criminal, though reformed now. He is very attached to his family, his daughter in particular. They have recently move out of a bad neighbourhood but the daughter is scared of the experiences. I loved the scene where the father to comfort his daughter tells a story about fairy and invisible impenetrable cloak.

And then there is this black detective who while being successful professionally loses his mother's love as he is not able to find his younger brother. While he is upright, he does make compromise for personal reasons.

Despite so much of intertwining, the plot is very clear and the movie moves symmetrically. I told Savitha after watching the movie that while the movie was good, it wasn't great. But overnight the movie grew on me. Having written a blog on racism, myself, I realized that I wasn't wrong in my observation that everyone practices discrimination, in some form or the other. Our experiences as an individual or as community defines our actions. By the way the movie isn't negative. In fact, it is very positive. It's about human behavior.

Watch it and feel it!