Crash

Today we had an official team lunch at Gateway hotel, followed by a film, the Oscar-winning Crash, at PVR Cinemas.

Crash has multiple threads in its story, all being incidents happening in Los Angeles in a day's time. A middle-aged shop owner of Iraqi origin, is always paranoid that others are insulting and cheating him. In the beginning of the story, we see him purchasing a gun to protect himself. In another thread, a black man and his wife are insulted by a racist police officer. The incident leads to friction in the relationship between them, as the wife accuses her husband of cowardice. There is another thread about a young police officer, who complains about his colleague's racism, and wants to work independently. In another story, two black men flick a car and run away with that, discussing about racism and related issues in foul language. Next story is of a government officer (?), whose wife is constantly worried that black men will break the doors of their house and rob them. All these stories get interlinked just by chance, and in the end we see all characters attaining some sort of peace of mind.



I think the director wants to say that all the problems of racist discrimination in the society are just bubbles around our ego. In the climax scene of the film, we see two cars colliding with each other by accident, and the director shows how hatred grows in our minds just because of prejudice and little attitude problems. He also wants to emphasize that the basic nature of all human beings is good, and shows this through two memorable sequences. In one scene, the Iraqi shop owner is about to shoot a locksmith, who he believes had broken into his shop. The locksmith's little daughter suddenly rushes into her father's lap and at the precise moment, the gun fires. For a few seconds, the shop-owner as well as the audience are shocked. But then we realize that the bullet just missed the girl, and we see a sign of relief on the shop-owner's face. He returns to his home and tells his daughter that the little girl had come as angel in his life. In another sequence, the racist policeman finds himself risking his life to save a black woman whom he had insulted earlier. We also see the young policeman shooting at a black man, suspecting that he was taking a gun from his pocket, whereas he was actually trying to take out a small idol.

I liked the narration style of the director. Crash is an interesting film, however I cant say that it meets the expectations generated by an Oscar-winning film. It is a message-oriented film, and other than couple of touching scenes mentioned above, there is nothing much in it that can be called as memorable artistic experiences.