Jan

Serenity & Crash

Posted by: richard in Movies

We rented Serenity this past weekend. I enjoyed it, for what it is. A romping sci-fi adventure. There was a good measure of bad acting and bad writing, but it didn’t hold me back much. I enjoyed it all the same. And I’m sure the story behind the making of the film is part of its charm.

We watched Crash earlier in the week.

Lots of profanity and a sex scene that I’m not sure what all was explicitly shown (because we zipped through it at 2x, 4x, 8x… the cycling fast forward speeds on our dvd player), but I saw enough to know that it wasn’t necessary in the film. A few other disturbing scenes.

The movie is about racism, and at first I found it hard to relate to most of the characters because their racism was so blatant and self-conscious. They knew they were being racist, and they were glad about it. I don’t know anyone like that. I’m sure they’re out there, but it’s so foreign to me that I felt like it was unbelievable.

After thinking on it some more, I think the over-the-topness of the racism may have been a device the filmmakers used to make explicit what is often only passing through our heads. The movie at least got me thinking and asking myself questions.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 3rd, 2006 at 1123 and is filed under Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

5 comments so far

Krazy Celtic

I am somewhat hard to please when it comes to movies, but wonderously I really enjoyed both. I think the character that I could really relate to in Crash was the young police officer, the guy who thought he had no racist feelings, did not approve of racism or like its manifestation, but who discovered that he really did have underlying racial assumptions after all.

January 3rd, 2006 at 1210

richard

Yeah, that’s probably where most of us are. I found myself most relating to the young father, though. For reasons having nothing to do with race, though… just being a dad to a little girl. That girl reminded me a lot of our oldest dauther, and man… the one scene was deeply emotional for me and Megan.

January 3rd, 2006 at 1219

Christo

Richard,
Lindsay and I watched this the other night. I am with you on the relation to the young father. Man, that was an intense scene! It’s just something about little girls that can bring a father to tears.

January 4th, 2006 at 0804

Phil

I’m surprised to hear you say you’ve never known anyone who was just plain racist. Even in “progressive” CA, I met more than a couple who would openly say things like those characters, and they weren’t acting in a movie.

At the same time, I think it is true that part of the movie’s point was to say out loud those things that run across our brains from time to time, and show us how ridiculous it sounds, such that even the thought should be seen as equally ridiculous.

January 11th, 2006 at 1532

richard

Yeah, I take it back. I have known people that were self-consciously racist.
Still, since that is so far from acceptable in my mind, I don’t feel like I can really relate to it. Except, like you said, for seeing how ridiculous it is when I have a similar thought.

January 12th, 2006 at 0813