Fruitvale Station Reflection

Fruitvale Station

IMDd: 7.5/10

Rotten Tomatoes: 94%

88% Like

Madelon’s Rate: 8.7/10 (87%)

Themes: Race, Profiling, Policing, Family, Reinvention

Because ‘Fruitvale Station’ is an on-screen, fictional depictions of a real-life event, I focused heavily on the construction of the narrative during this film. Looking at how they framed and built Oscar up as a character. During the whole first half of the movie, the filmmakers attempt to paint Oscar as the moral high figure of the film. They show him as a loving and great dad, a boyfriend trying to get better for his girlfriend, an ex-convict struggling to make a living, a wonderful and loving son, and a funny brother that takes care of his family. All of the early scenes in the film work to illustrate to the audience that Oscar Grant was a good person, so that our resulting reaction is justifiably equal to the injustice done. The writers and created want us as an audience to fall in love with the kindness, quirks, determination of this man, because in the foreseeable future, as we all know, Oscar becomes the victim. The film does a great job of provoking this emotional reaction from the audience through its narrative construction and character development. This is divisively employed in most movies to evoke reaction from the audience. The film did a good job of getting the audience angry, making a statement, giving a clear depiction of what may not be clearly interpreted from live footage of the incident and giving an idea of the personal context of Oscar that may not have be taken in context during the momentary glimpse in time when Oscars life wrongly came to an end.

One scene that grabs the audience and pulls them in close and tight, or at least it did for me, is when Oscars daughter talks to him about being afraid of hearing guns outside. “You be okay inside with your cousins”, Oscar says. “But what about you daddy?”, his daughter asks.

This foreshadowing of Oscars death by gun shot is meant to grip the audience, because hearing the words come from his own daughter makes the proceeding events even sadder to see. In reality, we may never know if this conversation occurred between Oscar and his daughter, but it was strategically placed to evoke reaction and build to the ultimate climax, making it more potent in the hearts of the audience, and truly commenting on the racial injustices of police profiling and violence. The film makes a clear message: We are all living life, trying to be good people, reform ourselves to be better for the ones we love, we all have this is common, living day by day, and ultimately ending a life based on the color of one’s skin is absolutely unjustifiable and will not go unnoticed by those in society. This movie makes this clear.