Last weekend I watched the movie Babel. As much fun as it would be to talk about the movie's name and it's link to the Bible, I don't think it would be very original or thought provoking, so I won't do it (although I will say that I think it has more to do with the people seperating into different people groups more than it has to do with languages).So instead, here's what I will say:
First, one of the best things about the movie was the way it showed how different people in different parts of the world act and live. It was like Crash, but instead of dealing with different groups of people in one country, it dealt with different people of the world.
Second, there were some interesting things they did with Westerners. Not to spoil the plot, but it was the Westerners who had happy endings in the movie. I couldn't say the same for the other people in the movie. What does that say?
But the biggest thing to me, the one thing that made the whole movie worthwhile, was one quick scene. A busload of Western tourists has to make an emergency stop, and so they go to a village that isn't part of their tour. Now, instead of seeing the cleaned-up, spiffy version of Morrocco, they go into an average village in the middle of a very harsh climate. While smiling little children chase the bus down the street, the tourists stare out the windows with nothing but fear on their faces. The word "terrorist" is mentioned more than once, and the people begin to get more and more freaked out being in this village until they decide they'd rather leave their own than be stuck in such a frightening place.
As I watched this all I could think about was how these people are very average; pumped full of fear and mistrust from their news, politicians, and neighbors, they cannot fathom the thought of being in a part of Morrocco that has not been westernized; they would prefer a simulacra, a version of Morrocco that is like Disneyland representing everything American. They don't want reality; they want an altered, better reality than reality. It was disturbing. It was especially saddening to realize I am not much different. One scene. And now I'm stuck figuring out what to do with that in my own life and what I'm supposed to communicate to others.
That's what I "got out of" Babel.
Peace,
Matt
2 comments:
When I first saw this movie's trailer, I told Cynthia that it looks like Crash but in a global sense. Seems that I was right.
Kurt was telling me on the way up about in the brothers K, there is a girl who prays a prayer of Muhammed in Aremaic and they begin to rejoice because they think that she has obtained the gift of tongues. It seems that it is this kind of arrogance that you are talking about when the people don't want to stop in the "terrorist" town.
It seems the thought that only "brown and black people can be terrorists" is a common thought amongst people who choose not to understand other cultures. People who pray and bow to the east before boarding a plane are planning on blowing up a plane where as people who are praying in a circle with their eyes closed and holding hands are trying to keep it in the air.
I saw Babel too. I liked it, although not as much as Crash. When I first heard about this movie, I was really hoping for an epic about the "tower" itself. Even though this movie wasn't about that, I was still pleasantly surprised. What I took away from the film was insight into the way that our legal and social systems can easily miss the goal for which they exist: to enable humans to live fuller lives. The movie does a good job of showing the opposite: how humans are made into a number, and thus they lose their humanity.
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