Crashing
Tuesday, March 14th, 2006"i have a dream that my four kids will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." -Martin Luther King
it’s just so funny that while i’m typing this out, i just can’t stop some lines from our Martin Luther King choral reading, from playing inside my head… i dunno if they have just become part of the gray areas inside this thing called brain, yet, now, upon watching CRASH, i realized that what i was memorizing then actually makes sense.
not that i thought that the piece was crap, or that MArtin Luther King was a fool. it’s actually a shame on my part that if it wasn’t because of the ever-hearthrob Ryan Philippe, i should have moved to the next line, and queue for Harrison Ford’s newest flick (which i will be watching soon, i guess, since my folks are so so fond of Harrison Ford). well, thanks for ryan (when was the last time i saw a Ryan Philippe movie? Cruel Intentions 2?); i should have missed such a thought-provoking story.
CRASH shows how prejudices prevent us from SEEing. Racism, that is, and it hurts thinking (and seeing) that while we keep on saying that the thing is over, still, there’s this imaginary orbit separating the whites from the blacks. Not that i am actually directly affected by it. but i cant stop pondering, what if, i was born a black? it wouldn’t be my choice in the first place. well, well, society and its complexities… (hhhmmmm…reminds me of Grisham’s A Time to Kill)
which leads me to another point. it’s what i always call the unreasonable randomness of the cosmos. i see that in CRASH. from the movie, you see people who, by the truest sense, are nothing but faces in such a big city as Los Angeles. Nothing but faces, yes, but, like the strands, they are intertwined. one is connected to the other. what’s funny with reality is that you just can’t help something from happening. they just happen because the situation allowed such happening. no matter how terrible the consequences are, THEY JUST HAPPEN. without reasons. without explanations.
inside each FACE is a person with so many stories to tell. the Mexican locksmith who does his humble job whole-heartedly for his wife and a beautiful, caring daughter… the Brentwood housewife and her District Attorney husband, who, in their competetive career, have forgotten the simple pleasures of life, like saying "i love you"… the police detective who cares so much for his father… a rookie cop full of idealism… the African-American director and his wife whose marital relationship was shaken because of racism… the korean couple… the car-jackers… THEY, TOO, HAVE THEIR STORIES.
why, of all people, the young kid was shot by a rookie cop who would die just to play back time and wish he shouldn’t have pulled the trigger? the unreasonable randomness of the cosmos.
why does it have to be Mr. Director’s wife who must be in a car accident while she was struggling to resolve their relationship? the unreasonable randomness of the cosmos.
and why does the humble locksmith always get reprimanded despite his dedication to his job? the unreasonable randomness of the cosmos.
maybe because the world just works that way. nobody could stop randomness. nothing could. while i am typing now, it could be that somewhere near me, a fire is starting out, or a bomb will explode. then i’ll die without knowing. i’ll just die unreasonably as i was born. and like reality, the world will just keep on revolving, crashing each other’s lives…
post script:
i should have met Paul Haggis. i’m the daughter he never had… something itches me. i wanna go back home, and find that Million Dollar Baby DVD…and watch it by till 4am as i eat my brother’s home-made spaghetti…
