The title of the pun makes it difficult to accurately translate, and the theme of the movie itself is also difficult to describe in a word.
The movie is not about a person’s story, but about the lives of all beings that took place in Los Angeles for a day and a half. Everyone is clashing with different people (Crash), and the tragicomedy between those humble people is about race and not about race. We get angry at others, often just because we are upset, but in Los Angeles in the movie, when this sign is smashed, it will probably hit nine people of different races. The angry gunfire often hits people of different races. people. It seems to be due to prejudice and conflict between races, but maybe the fuse is some very personal reasons. ——If you were robbed by two black gangsters on the street just now, and you were so frightened, when you vented your grievances with your family and cursed that the damn nigger was a thief, would you worry about changing the lock for you? Is the carpenter a black man? However, the prejudice in the subconscious may make the disadvantaged groups just become victims at gunpoint. The so-called persimmon always chooses to be soft. ——Even if you are a good policeman who thinks he has no racial prejudice, you can let a black boy ride you in the middle of the night, but when you argue and he ignores your warning and reaches out to your pocket for something, you will Wouldn't you think he was holding a gun and shoot him? (If it's not a black man, don't say that this situation won't happen, and you won't even get into a fight.)
If Crash's screenwriter and director were to be interviewed, would he say that this movie is not about racial discrimination, but about human nature? Many people think that its theme is about race, but I think it is not that simple. The slogans of eliminating discrimination and racial equality have been shouted up to now. Everyone is familiar with the set of politically correct guidelines. In real life, the situation is quite complicated, and one sentence of racial prejudice cannot cover everything up. As Police Officer Graham said at the beginning of the movie, under the barrier of glass and metal, we haven't had the experience of passing by others for a long time (to the effect). In fact, political correctness is also like the glass and metal in people's hearts. It protects us carefully from harm, but it also makes people lose the opportunity to understand each other in collisions and frictions. However, how do we choose between pros and cons? This question is too difficult to answer.
The details in the movie are also very meticulous, but they are not suggestive and symbolic, but plot, some gentle and touching, some sharp irony, but also leave a lot of aftertaste to the audience. But unlike the details of "Brokeback Mountain", the details of "Brokenback" point to the movie itself, which brings the audience to the aftertaste and rediscovery of the meaning of the movie's plot, while the plot and details of Crash let the audience To reflect and think. So after watching "Brokeback Mountain", you may feel sorry for the repressive love of the two male protagonists, secretly sigh your regret or pain, and fall into the film and cannot extricate yourself. At the same time, I also hope that tragedy will not happen if there is no prejudice. But after watching Crash, you will find that even though society is slowly progressing, life is still so helpless and complicated. Everyone is ordinary people. Good people will have disgraceful deeds out of self-protection, bastards. Between feelings of gratitude or guilt, people will also do good deeds. People hurt each other in conflict and friction, but at the same time they also help and comfort each other.
After reading a lot of observations, many people think that the plot of the script is cleverly arranged and the technique is very unique. However, in my opinion, the screenwriting technique does not have too many new things. The depth of the movie lies in the aforementioned. To bring the audience's thinking.
I checked the information and found that the screenwriter and director Paul Haggis is a TV drama writer and director. Perhaps because of this, this movie actually has a lot of TV drama traces. After being robbed of the car by two black gangsters, the district attorney discussed how to handle the most complete scene. I laughed and suddenly thought of Spin City. The structure of the parallel and intersecting methods of multiple clues may be clever and novel if you haven't seen it, but it's not uncommon in TV dramas. Especially, I have watched so many seasons of ER, this kind of structure couldn't be more familiar. After watching it, I felt that if ER made a two-hour movie version, it would be like this. What's more, the doctors and nurses in the emergency room are so ethnically complicated: white people from wealthy backgrounds, black people from the bottom struggling, from the former southern region, from China, Latinos, Indians, single mothers. , Lesbians...In addition, the people who come to the emergency room are so diverse, thinking about life and death, and the dilemma of choice, which is not inferior to the racial problem arranged in Crash. Moreover, in the ER, the emergency room is used as a stage to allow different people to meet and leave here. Although it is accidental, it is always acceptable. But in Crash, it was too coincidental and deliberate to arrange so many people of different races to have a relationship with each other in a day and a half. Especially the two police officers met again with the couple who had been humiliated the day before, and they would not be together again. In the case of duty, so dramatic that one person met one, and he really won the lottery first prize.
Of course, the various coincidences arranged by the screenwriter are intended to create an effect that the fate of mankind is interconnected. I have watched some European movies before and have similar techniques. Like a movie that I like very much, Before the Rain (Chinese translated into "Mountain Rain Wants to Come" and "Rainstorm Is Coming"), it is three stories happening one after another instead of parallel development, but similar to Crash, three The characters in the story are also related to each other, and both use a circular structure, starting from a certain point in time, then flashback, and then back to the beginning point in time, and through editing, it creates a very special The time loop effect. Crash and it have a very similar detail. Before the Rain starts from the sultry weather and the rainstorm is approaching, and after returning to the beginning at the end, the rainstorm that has been brewing for a long time finally falls. And shortly after the beginning of Crash, the police officer said that it was like it was going to snow, and near the end, it was snow falling. The two are different in the same way. But I think whether it is the effect of the ring structure, or this similar arrangement, or Before the Rain is very meaningful.
PS: Crash may end here. I have seen the most race appearances in a movie and heard the most vulgar movies.
PPS: The title comes from a quote from Shakespeare in "Good Night, Good Luck":
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves.
——Julius Caesar, ActⅠ,SceneⅡ
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