Crash¶
225 words on Films
Crash, known as ‘L.A. Crash’ in its German version – making it easier to distinguish from David Cronenberg’s Crash from the 1990s – caught me right at the beginning by a character saying that in L.A., unlike in real cities, people don’t walk and usually hide behind metal and glass. He concludes that people crash into each other just to get some contact. As I quite disliked L.A. when visiting there, this resonated with me.
The film then begins by circling around a car crash and a number of other criminal incidents, around the police investigating them and cultural or racial issues coming up over and over again. With a mixture of variously coloured Americans both from the U.S. and further South, there is plenty of room for all sorts of prejudices which is eagerly filled by the characters. We see the bad guys having good days, the good guys having bad days, the racists being racist, the racists having better things to do than being racist and so on.
It’s quite a good film. Perhaps everything ends up being a bit too wound up in the end. Having a good day once in a while excuses neither the racist white cop nor the black killer. You may want to try and guess who’s most criminal or racist just from looking at the photos…
