The Many Faces of Suffering
I went with Gay to watch Babel in Poweplant Mall today. I’d been anticipating this movie for a long, long time.
I was intruiged by the idea of a connected story in several languages (and anyone who has read the Bible would surely be familiar with the story of the tower of Babel in the Book of Genesis - the starting point in human history where the various languages supposedly originate from). The actual movie blew me away, to put it quite bluntly. I’ve seen many ‘artsy’ and ’serious’ films before, so I felt really jaded when I first sat in the cinema.
The opening scene begins with two boys in Morroco. They are given a gun by their father, in order to protect the family’s herd of goats from jackals. While rifle testing the contraption (by shooting fully loaded cartridges at passing vehicles on an otherwise deserted highway) they accidentally shoot an American tourist. This one single incident sets of a chain of unusual, seemingly unrelated incidents.
‘Babel’ explores the links that connect human lives and events (even seemingly unrelated ones that take place continents away). Inter-layered with the original catalyst are the stories of a Japanese girl, a Mexican nanny and an American couple on holiday in Morcco. The stories take strange, unexpected turns : revealing human folly and misunderstandings along the way. The Japanese girl turns out to be an emotionally disturbed teenager recovering from her mother’s suicide. The Mexican nanny loses everything she’s ever worked for in two extrordinary days.
I don’t want to spill to many details about the movie. If you’re intruiged enough, go watch it yourself!
Please take note of the final scene in the movie, it’s so beautiful! (PS I must warn you, Babel is a little disturbing, mainly because it’s too realistic - not much Hollywood escapism here.)
