TV Times

TV Times

'Crash' landing in Colombo
By Susitha R. Fernando
Winner of three Oscars, Paul Haggis' 'Crash', a movie about the troubled racial conflicts in Los Angeles is now being screened at Majestic cinema in Colombo.
Featuring an all-star cast and some of the finest, realistic writing you'll ever see, "Crash" dares to go where few films have gone before, openly flirting between lines of race, colour, and ethnicity. The film won Best Picture, Best Editing and Best original Screenplay at the Academy awards 2006. It also bagged several BAFTA awards and won international acclaims too.

Written and directed by Paul Haggis, the Academy Award winning writer of "Million Dollar Baby," "Crash" relays a handful of stories which is thought provoking and each with a different spin on racial tolerance in today's world. It deals with assumptive and presumptuous behaviour that is considered as bad examples.

'Crash' stars James Spader, Holly Hunter, Deborah Kara Unger, Rosanna Arquette, Elias Koteas, Peter MacNeil. A provocative, unflinching look at the complexities of racial conflict in America, 'Crash' is that rare cinematic event - a film that challenges audiences to question their own prejudices. Diving headlong into the diverse melting pot of post-9/11 Los Angeles, this compelling urban drama tracks the volatile intersections of a multi-ethnic cast, examining fear and bigotry from multiple perspectives as characters swerve in and out of one another's lives. No one is safe in the battle zones of racial strife.

And no one is immune to the simmering rage that sparks violence - and changes lives. A district attorney and his wife, a Persian shopkeeper, a Mexican locksmith, an African American television director and his wife, two carjackers, a middle-aged Korean couple, a veteran and a rookie cop, these are just some of the characters whose lives are on a collision course - some for better, some for worse. All are connected by their hopes and dreams, their fears and sorrows, and their compassion and courage. All are connected by their humanity. Powerful and provocative, "Crash" is a masterful morality tale with a lot of guts.

The story revolves around the handful of storyline which evolves and develop is these characters. Many of these stories collide in different ways. Waters' mother is a junkie, his brother is missing, and even worse, he is blackmailed into a police cover up. Officer Ryan can't get medical care for his dying father, racially insults a black woman at his HMO for taking referential treatment, and then finds himself in a life-threatening situation with a familiar face. Cameron returns to work, but is approached by a white producer who tells him that one of his actors is not "black enough."

Additionally, because his wife blames him for failing to protect her, he turns suicidal and has a confrontation with Officer Hansen, who endures a certain amount of humiliation to work alone. Then, theres the locksmith, who is actually a family man, but who falls prey to a near fatal stereotype by a Persian shopkeeper, who himself is mistaken for an Arab. All these stories lie at the intersection of an urban, multi-ethnic time where humanity is blinded by racial intolerance. This film is a must for many with racial prejudice of stereotyping race, colour and ethnicity.

Crash has earned some $83 million at the box office around the world as well as millions more in home video and DVD sales. Screening times are 10.30 am, 1.30 pm and 7 .00pm and the film is imported and distributed by Cinema Entertainment Limited (CEL).

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