Gran Tourino

Some time ago I saw the movie Gran Tourino. To this day I feel a bit odd for loving it as much as I did. Rarely does a movie explore race relations and racial tensions as honestly as this movie does.

Remember the Titans did it pretty well, but the two cannot be compared. We are two generations removed from those events, and we have the present to reassure us that the schools remained de-segregated. Furthermore the friction in that movie was mostly about color, for both blacks and whites speak the same language and had had roots in this land for several centuries.

The friction in Gran Tourino really lies in the difference in culture. The characters with beef were White and Asian. Catholic and Buddhist. English-speaking and non-English speaking.

The lead role, played by Clint Eastwood, was that of an All-American midwestern widowed man. His role alone spoke volumes of what America was and what it no longer is. Mr. Pawelchski was of Polish descent. Like the Germans, the Irish and the Italians, the Polish established themselves in the United States well before World War I. They faced discrimination and adversity upon their arrival. Eventually, their last names got common enough so that people stopped questioning their nationality, they became monolingual, and their distinguishing characteristics became less obvious.

Mr. Pawelchski's fold was his next door neighbor, a young Asian immigrant with no hope of ever getting a girlfriend. Like Latinos, Asians don't have a widely known presence in American history. Both still face discrimmination and adversity. Neither group's surnames have even begun to blend in with the rest of the mix. Neither dark skin, nor almond eyes will be ignored at an airport.

What really got me about this movie was its portrayal of distrust amongst us. We distrust each other, we fear each other and we segragate ourselves. We feel frustrated with what has become of our country, and we don't know how to turn it around. Instead, we blame it on each other. It was obvious that Pawelchski's character saw his neighbors as the cause of the American downfall. He had worked for GMC his whole life and hated the Japanese auto industry. He especially hated that his own son was a dealer for Toyota. Like Mr. Pawelchski, America had seen better days. From one generation to the next, America lost it's work ethic. Mr. Pawelchski's son, after all, was a materialistic, ambitious car-dealer whose poor excuse for parenting created materialistic, disrespectful, selfish children.

In his last days, Mr. Pawelchski passed on the torch of America's well being to his immigrant neighbor. Unlike Pawelchski's son, his neighbor was willing to take it. He learned about the value of honest labor from his elderly neighbor with great eagerness. And upon his neighbor's death, he was rewarded with a beatiful sportscar that was not to be defiled in anyway.

We should all take on that responsibility. I think America needs to revert to the work ethic present in the 1940's. They were after all, the greatest generation.


It's a really sad movie, but I highly recommend it.