Fruitvale Station

I have this odd interest in watching films that make me feel uncomfortable. I don't mean uncomfortable in the horror film jump scare sense- I can't really stand most of those films anyway and I suspect my habit of wiki-ing films before watching them stemmed from this- but more along the lines of the unsettling feeling in your stomach sense, like the tension you would feel from a scene in a Hitchcock film. Incidentally, there haven't been many films coming out this year that I've actually been interested in watching compared to the last (Star Trek was okay, Monsters University met expectations, Pacific Rim was surprisingly fun... yeah that's about it), or at least from the major mainstream releases anyway. Recently though, I watched two films on limited release that were probably some of the best I've seen in a while, and I should watch limited release films more often. But anyway, this post covers the first of those. I'll get to the second one another time.

About a month ago I saw Fruitvale Station with a friend in SF. It's a drama film based on the BART Police shooting of Oscar Grant that occurred a few years ago, which to be honest I wasn't fully conscious of at the time aside from the mass protesting that took place as a result of it. The film felt particularly even more relevant at the time I saw it, though, given that the decision regarding the case of Trayvon Martin had just come out a week before, and the week following it had just been heavy and depressing.

The film itself covers the last day of Oscar Grant's life leading up to the shooting event, of which clips from the actual incident are shown in the first few minutes to establish the connection in a manner that felt reminiscent to me of the 9/11 clips in Zero Dark Thirty. Oscar Grant is portrayed by Michael B. Jordan, an actor I fondly remembered as the teenage Wallace from the first season of The Wire, and I was surprised to see how much he'd grown since then. The 24 hours leading up to the event seem to play out like any other day in the life of an average, formerly delinquent but struggling black male living in East Bay. The film even felt a touch close to home with shots of BART and of course Fruitvale Station among other things. Some of the more touching and poignant moments, such as Grant's interactions with his young daughter, added a pleasant mood to the film and helped to convey how normal his life was... up until that fateful moment, that is.

It is all the more tragic to witness it all go down in succession, hoping for a happy resolution for this man and his family even though you already know what happened in real life. The last half hour or so was just gut-wrenching to watch. My friend had to leave the theater until the film ended, and I teared up. (...okay, so I haven't legitimately cried in a film since An American Tail in elementary school... but nowadays if something makes me tear up, it's pretty legit.)

Granted, it's been mentioned online that parts of the film were over-dramatized or inserted for effect, as would likely any other film based off of a true story. The director couldn't have known what exactly did go through Oscar Grant's mind on the last day of his life, and what we have left is a film that makes clear its sympathies towards the victim of the actual incident overall. I feel somewhat mixed on how appropriate it is to depict real life events in a fictionalized format; while the film doesn't necessarily make any outright claims towards being the end-all truth of the matter, it's tempting to associate its depiction of Grant with the real man when you're caught in the emotion of the moment, and especially when juxtaposed with clips of the actual incident and aftermath. I have to wonder how much worse it could be if it had been any other heavily politicized event... like Trayvon.

(I felt a similar feeling after Zero Dark Thirty as well, except the premise for that film as a CIA operation with a few fictionalized characters was removed enough that I didn't mind it so much, whereas Oscar here is someone people actually did know in real life.)

But at the least, it makes for a compelling drama and a haunting, yet beautiful film. I can't speak as much as to how the actual shooting was portrayed except that it doesn't really seem to point the finger at anyone involved so much as it does make it seem like an unfortunate combination of circumstance and bad timing. It doesn't tug too hard on the political aspects of the incident so much as it does attempt to create a story, one that makes you reconsider how easily a full life can just disappear when you least expect it. And that's how tragic events are in real life... quick and unexpected. but with lasting consequences.

I'd recommend Fruitvale Station to anyone, but with a note that it's not really one of those films you watch to be entertained, so much as to be disturbed and moved. And I kinda wish there there were more prominent movies available to watch in theaters like it, although I have to admit I haven't been paying attention to what's been coming out that closely yet. Maybe I'll start doing so again.