Cause And Effect In The Movie Crash

In Crash, we could see a practice of non-linear editing. „This is how meaning circulates […] since every change causes a chain of local events leading to another […] The narrative of Crash is a weaving together of random incidents, instead of a linear chain of cause and effect" (Laine, 2007:36, 37-38). In my opinion, this statement is half true. Actually, the literal structure of cause and effect is not ceased just because we split the events in the movie. We always see the cause first then the effect. What the filmmaker does is that he splits or breaks these parts into pieces and fills the gaps with another action (which are parts of other causes or effects of course).
These breaks or fragments appear in two levels in Crash: time and

space. Jumping spaces during the narrative of the film are common for the present-day viewer. Chasing scenes of adventure movies are based this jumping to reach high excitement and empathy. E.g. we see a burglar who is stealing things in a room then we see a man who is approaching the entry door. As he is coming, the distance between the two places is reducing and actions of the characters will be shown in shorter and shorter cuts (the tempo becomes faster and more dynamic). The viewer presupposes that this parallel montage is set in the same time and the story goes by to equalize the difference of space - which usually happens if the filmmaker's intention is not to mislead the viewer (if he/she does then the whole scene and suspense will be comical).
The other method which makes gaps in the narrative uses time. Well, this is a fact and common thing to that movie misses some time periods out as it doesn't want to represent reality but give a strictly constructed and controlled experience of perception by the story (and using elements which the film finds important). But if the film makes non-linear jumps in time then it can make the viewer's conclusions more difficult and make the movie more unique.
Haggis mixes the scenes but both of these two levels is not dominant in the movie. I don't make a list how many times we change space because it is easy to tell: when we change scene we change space as well (about fifty-seven times). Changing time in a non-linear way is only once in Crash.