Crash: Visual And Emotional Discomfort For Thematic Storytelling Movie Reviews Examples

Crash is a film that deals extensively with the concept of race relations, and for the way that it handles race relations in American society, the film received a number of awards, including an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award. This film tracks the lives of a number of characters as they go about their daily lives—eventually the lives of all the characters intersect, although the strange chronology of the film makes it difficult to understand the connections at first. The movie follows the characters closely, encouraging the viewer to note their good and bad qualities, almost as though the viewer is encouraged to keep score.
No character in Crash is the victim entirely—that is one of the fundamental messages of the film. Each character is complex and contains good and bad qualities. This mix of qualities is what the screenwriter was attempting to convey through the use of repeated and overt racism throughout the film. The audience is privy to the fact that none of the characters is completely innocent (or completely guilty) and thus, the open racism of the characters seems silly and pointless to the omniscient audience. The audience is also repeatedly made uncomfortable because of the near-constant use of racial slurs throughout the film. Although the use of racial slurs is designed to make a point about racism in society and the ridiculousness of racism, the constant use of the slurs is an added technique designed to draw the viewer outside his or her comfort zone to look at the implications of his or her own beliefs as well. Racism, and the ignorance associated with racism, is one of the fundamental themes of the film.