Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by boa2 on January 08, 2007 at 19:27:10

In Reply to: At the risk of being insulting posted by Analog Scott on December 26, 2006 at 16:26:51:

"Funny thing is all the main characters share the same frailties and virtues."

Exactly. Which is why the viewer is inclined to step into the trap of automatically aligning the characters with their respective cultures, when in fact their frailties, virtues, and vulnerabilities make them culturally interchangeable...or simply put, human. Inarritu is a much more inquisitive filmmaker than is Gaggis, who in "Crash" tapped into predictable audience preconceptions to hammer home the point that we're all racist. In "Crash", the characters are are their stereotypes, both as perpetrators and victims. The film was awarded for confirming exactly what audiences already believed to be true even before seeing it. As one critic noted, it wasn't plotted, it was programmed. Whereas "Babel" prompted questions, "Crash" professed to have all of the answers from take one.