Hollywood makes realistic cinema very very rarely. Fruitvale station (though produced by a relatively small Hollywood studio, The Weinstein company) is one of these rare gems. The movie style is more Persian neo-realist rather than anything from Hollywod.
I really loved this movie. It tells the tale of an African American who has messed up in the past. But he is more or less a nice guy who loves his mom and his daughter. Problems exist with his wife but he is trying to make amends. He even decides to give up dealing marijuana, most likely the screw up from his past. These provide a decent portrait of the lower middle class America but the punch of the movie is about how the police deals with the black people here. They kill them while hundreds of people are watching.
When I came out of the movie theater I was really moved. The movie begins with mobile phone camera footage showing the real like incident that happened in Oakland, CA. Before coming to America, I just would not have imagined such a thing could happen in the land of the free. Hell, even in India the police at least tries to create false pretenses by claiming that they shot only after being shot in the first place. But here you have the police officer coolly take his gun out ( he claims he was taking out his taser) and shoot a guy in the back. The guy who was shot was handcuffed, overpowered and with his face touching the ground. And all this happened in a railway station with hundreds of people watching and filming this.
The movie is a reminder that all is not well with how America deals with its poor and marginalized. Yes, a lot of black eople commit crimes. But if you have a situation where you ghettoize a community, which has an already high crime rate you are only asking for more crime. You don't need a criminal psychologist to tell you that. Add the fact that almost most of the people in jail (read: criminals who are caught) are black and you have a recipe for disaster.
The movie itself doesn't tell you all these directly. But it is a mark of a very good political movie that it provides a lot of subtle hints that make you realize that the system is even more fucked up than a guy being shot in the back by someone who is supposed to protect him.
As with any kind of realistic cinema this is a really slow movie. It is also not very pretty. It has probably been shot with a cheap hand held camera. For added effect the cinematographer also holds it unsteadily. And there aren't too many light moments ( the father-daughter bonding is probably the only exception to this). And in the end it hits you in the feels. So to put it simply it is a serious movie that is right up my alley. Everyone should watch this. At least once it comes online!
I really loved this movie. It tells the tale of an African American who has messed up in the past. But he is more or less a nice guy who loves his mom and his daughter. Problems exist with his wife but he is trying to make amends. He even decides to give up dealing marijuana, most likely the screw up from his past. These provide a decent portrait of the lower middle class America but the punch of the movie is about how the police deals with the black people here. They kill them while hundreds of people are watching.
When I came out of the movie theater I was really moved. The movie begins with mobile phone camera footage showing the real like incident that happened in Oakland, CA. Before coming to America, I just would not have imagined such a thing could happen in the land of the free. Hell, even in India the police at least tries to create false pretenses by claiming that they shot only after being shot in the first place. But here you have the police officer coolly take his gun out ( he claims he was taking out his taser) and shoot a guy in the back. The guy who was shot was handcuffed, overpowered and with his face touching the ground. And all this happened in a railway station with hundreds of people watching and filming this.
The movie is a reminder that all is not well with how America deals with its poor and marginalized. Yes, a lot of black eople commit crimes. But if you have a situation where you ghettoize a community, which has an already high crime rate you are only asking for more crime. You don't need a criminal psychologist to tell you that. Add the fact that almost most of the people in jail (read: criminals who are caught) are black and you have a recipe for disaster.
The movie itself doesn't tell you all these directly. But it is a mark of a very good political movie that it provides a lot of subtle hints that make you realize that the system is even more fucked up than a guy being shot in the back by someone who is supposed to protect him.
As with any kind of realistic cinema this is a really slow movie. It is also not very pretty. It has probably been shot with a cheap hand held camera. For added effect the cinematographer also holds it unsteadily. And there aren't too many light moments ( the father-daughter bonding is probably the only exception to this). And in the end it hits you in the feels. So to put it simply it is a serious movie that is right up my alley. Everyone should watch this. At least once it comes online!
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