Crash-a rare combination of a quasi-artistic form with an artless content

Rating: 3/10 (11 May 2006)

With too intricate a structure and too stilted a style, the movie Crash is prevented from arriving at the essence of the subject matter it deals with. The complicated set-up of the narrative structure, the unnatural connections between characters, together with the over-usage of coincidence contribute to the story only on a dramatic level. It does help elaborate the point of the film in many directions, except that it is pretty much on same depth instead of going further for a deeper exploration of the potential the film has. It is disappointing in a film with the ambition in handling such a rich and meaningful issue.
What raises my expectation high and then lets me down is the style of the movie, or the gesture the movie holds, to be better put. The constant self-comments on the subject matter, the sophisticated philosophical voice-over, the soundtrack with big orchestra symphony and the graceful camera movements with poetic images all work hard to remind me that this has to be an insightful and artistic movie and that it is taping a real hard-core topic. This is of course, the reflection of the self-awareness of the director who is eager to deliver the message as to how he wants us to see the film instead of letting the film itself do the job. Not to mention the message delivered by the gesture is utterly misleading as the content of the film is actually very unpretentious and it touches us in a simple and more direct way.
The title Crash works on a metaphorical level nicely (another example of how self-aware the filmmaker is), but as a feature-length film, it is far from enough to justify a structure in which several separate stories are also in a "crash"--meaning they are just put together artificially by awkward coincidences and forced connections among characters. The savor of the movie is actually each individual storythey are effective and powerful. I believe that it is a mistake to make the raw material of Crash into a feature film and it'd be so much better to make a few really good short films out of it. My advice is: losing the structure and the gesture as well as the self-comments, plus director giving up the role of a deep thinker as there is really not much fruits of thoughts but some truly touching human stories that should be told in a very simple and sincere way. Only then, the real and various thoughts will rise at the liberty of each viewer with a personal perspective to it. After all, with the topic the film discusses, it is frivolous even to attempt to provide an answer whereas to ask questions that may lead us to think about it from a different angle is what the best a film can do.
When I am writing this, I am thinking of the conversation Stanley Kubrick and Frederic Raphael had during their cooperation on the screenplay of Eyes Wide Shut. Stanley mentioned that he had always wanted to make a film about the Holocaust but he didn't know how; and Frederic named Schindler's List as an example. Stanley said: is it a film about the Holocaust? Frederic answered: it isn't? Stanley : No, it is not. It is about the VICTORY. One man's victory.
This is how heavy I would imagine this film could potentially weigh and how humble a film and filmmaker have to be towards the issue.