Started by a car accident, Crash does not only tell the story started by this crash but also show us the crash between different classes, races and identities. An interesting point is that the film unfolds in flashback. It shows the accident at the first and then back to the day before. One day before the crash, the district attorney and his wife were robbed by two black men. They are afraid of further robberies so they changed the locks on their home. But the hostess doesn’t trust the locksmith because he was colored with tattoo. There is a worthy thinking going on here. While his wife are afraid, the attorney ,who is a white, is considering the way to minimize the impact of this event since he doesn’t want to lose the support from the black voters. Story goes on. The white policeman is dissatisfied with the black doctor’s unwillingness to change his father’s doctor, so he takes out his anger on the innocent black director and his wife. The direct witnessed his wife being insulted but did nothing since he doesn’t want to create conflict.But the irony is that in the end it was the white policeman who saved the director’s wife. Then the scene changed. The Persian merchant did not trust the locksmith’s words because of his appearance and refused to change the door, leading to the destruction of his shop. And he blames this to the locksmith and want to get back at him. But he is saved by the locksmith’s daughter. The young policeman protected the black director because he witnessed the unreasonable or even unfair actions of his partner, but still shot and killed a black man by mistake due to the habit of the white people and their prejudice against the black people. In the end, these seemingly unrelated stories tie together and make up the beginning of the movie —- The crash.
The whole movie is filled with conflicts among people with different identities and a lot of injustices. Many of these are discussed throughout the semester. For instance, Gun shop owner doesn’t want to sell gun to the Persian merchant since he thought all Middle Eastern people are Arabs and are dangerous. We definitely have a much deeper understanding of this when we were doing the reading of The Reluctant Fundamentalist. I think this film could be a good start for our class since it really brings us audience about what is systematical injustices. Some of the things that may seem politically correct to us may just be a compromise with what we called politically incorrect. How ironic it is. In my opinion, the film actually bring us a hopeful future. In the end, another crash happens. But as Christmas snowflakes fall, other vehicles carry on as usual and people move on to the New Year. It is true that crash can lead to destruction but it can also promote integration.
