Crash

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0375679/

 "It's the sense of touch. In a real city you walk, you know, people bump into you. In L.A. nobody touches you. We are always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something."

That was the opening line of the movie Crash said by a detective played by Don Cheadle. The director of this movie Paul Haggis did not explore racism through the usual vehicles. He refrained from depicting racists as aggressors tormenting minorities. In this film, everyone is shown to be victims of racism and are racists themselves in the context of different situations. This movie has the potential to offend everyone. Typically racism is depicted as a malicious act born of ignorance. But I think Haggis is also saying that the ones that sit in judgement of others and think that they are not racists are the ones that potentially inflict the most harm. In the movie the character that seems least likely to be a racist actually causes the most harm when he kills an unarmed black boy.


When asked about this movie, Haggis said "Life parallels art and art parallels life."   In the Crash DVD Commentary Track (2005), He commented that he was inspired to write and direct Crash after he was carjacked in his Porsche outside a video store.

 The director use visual means to create a sense of irony throughout the film. This was most powerful in the use of the policeman's hands. At first they were used to molest a black woman by putting his hands up her dress and then later to give her a sense of dignity when he pulled he skirt down while he was saving her life.