The Trayvon Martin incident stirred such outrage recently that any film released in its aftermath might be expected to incite a similar amount of anger. “Fruitvale Station,” this year’s Sundance Audience Award winner, depicts a similar incident that occurred in the Bay Area on New Year’s Eve in 2008. Although deeply rooted in racial roots and the plight of America’s working class, Ryan Coogler’s debut film invokes empathy and solemnity over political fervor.
“Fruitvale Station” is pure melodrama, a biopic of a man wrongly murdered at the BART train station after a misunderstanding with the police, some racial profiling and a cop too loose on his trigger finger. In an opening cell phone video of the actual event, we see police berating some not exactly docile black men. One of them stands and is pinned to the ground with the cop appearing to drive his knee into the back of the man’s skull. People on the train shout, “That’s not right man!” and “Let him go!” before a gun shot goes off and the video cuts to black.
One wonders what exactly happened on the day George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin. And yet something like this shows that there is still some ambiguity.
Coogler’s film taps into that nuance and makes a slice of life profile of a man, 22-year-old Oscar Grant (Michael B. Jordan), who wasn’t quite a saint and might’ve even provoked his killer, but probably didn’t deserve this fate either.
It’s not as though Oscar’s life is riddled with tragedy or a fine example of how racism is alive and well. Coogler depicts little more than the day in the life of this man, and to see how ordinary and unsuspecting “Fruitvale Station” is provides the key to its power. Continue reading “Fruitvale Station”