The French Honor Excellent American Movie.

The French celebrate and honor American culture in their onw special way, by having a festival dedicated to American cinema. It is called "Le Festival du Cinéma Américain de Deauville" and has been going on for about 10 years.

This year, le festival gave its top award to "Collision" better known in the U.S. as "Crash". I have to say that I am delighted. It is an excellent movie which I would warmly recommand.

It is basically about several characters of different racial backgrounds colliding in one incident - not unlike "Short Cuts". The movie deconstructs the process of racism in a very non-judgemental way. The characters are multi-dimensional and there is always some part you can relate to. the movie's thesis - that prejudice is always there under the surface - is nothing new but the treatment of the subject is excellent. The cast (Matt Dillon and Sandra Bullock are amazingly convincing) is quite good and the writing is so good that the movie stays in your mind for quite some time. Even the photography is very good.
So if you haven't seen it yet, go for it. It will for once be worth your 8 or 9 euro/dollars.
First-time film director Paul Haggis is also the co-writer. He also wrote the scrip of "Million Dollar Baby". Not bad! Definitely somebody whose next film I will rush to.