The reason why I created this blog is because I am fulfilling my need to be heard. Not everybody share my interests and not everybody can comprehend what I say despite my best efforts to express it in simple language. Most of the people I encounter don't know what the hell I'm talking about and sometimes I wonder if they are stupid or if I'm just inadequate and boring.
My dilemma is the premise of the movie, Babel, masterfully directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. It involves four stories of people who are in Morocco, Mexico and Japan. All have different stories to tell but they have the same dilemma as mine: Nobody seems to listen to us.
Inarritu, moves seamlessly between the four storylines in a subtle and elegant manner. His direction brings out fine performances from his actors and he brings honest and uncomprising images to the screen. He also gave the characters three-dimensionality in emotionally complex scenes.
The movie opens on a Moroccan family, who owns a herd of goats, in the Moroccan desert. Yussef, is the middle child between an older brother and a younger sister. The two brothers were given a rifle by their father to shoot jackals. Since they were in the boonies and extremely bored, Yussef takes time to peep through a hole in the wall to look at his younger sister while she was undressing. The sister obliges Yussef with flirtatious smiles.
While watching over the goats and having no jackals to shoot, Yussef and his older brother decided to test how far the rifle could hit a target. They aimed at a tourist bus. Yussef, soon regretted what they had done, but was scared to tell his father what happened since his father had started reciting how the shooter would be dealt with by the law. He was afraid that he would get into trouble. Fear of the consequences for what we have done would always silence us and prevent us from telling the truth. Trouble did come and by the time he screamed out the truth to his father and to the police, it was already too late.
Richard and Susan, played by Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett respectively, were American tourists in Morocco. They wanted to patch up their marriage while spending time together on a vacation. It was not going well. As Susan took a nap on the bus, a bullet suddenly got lodged into her neck. They had to go to a very remote and small town to seek medical help and, Susan,was stitched up by a veterinarian to stop her from bleeding to death. For a week they stayed in that town, awaiting help from the US embassy. Richard, had to do everything for,Susan, since she couldn't move and the bullet was still in her neck. There in the small town and in a small room, Richard and Susan began to truly hear and listen to each other.
The worst thing about their situation was that the US government knew about Susan's condition after a few hours she was shot. Still, they did not respond immediately because they had to follow some protocols and bureaucratic processes. This is the problem with all governments, they know that their citizens are suffering but sometimes they ignore the cries or take a very long time to respond to their needs. Governments should learn to listen and comprehend.
Amelia, wonderfully played by Adriana Barraga, is a housekeeper and a nanny of the two children, a boy and a girl, of Richard and Susan. She wanted to go back to Mexico to attend her daughter's wedding. Richard, rattled by what happened to Susan, wouldn't hear of it. Out of her desire to be there for her daughter and against her better judgment, she took the children with her.
After the wedding, they were driven home across the border by Santiago, played with appropriate paranoia and drunkenness by Gael Garcia Bernal with whom Kates(see list of Friends) has a passionate relationship. At the border, while they were being questioned, the very excitable Santiago panicked and drove across the border, into the desert and dropped Amelia and the kids in the middle of nowhere.
Later, Amelia was interrogated by the border police and was told that she would be deported back to Mexico. She tried to explain to the indifferent officer, in her halting English, that she's very poor, that she has worked in the US fpr many years and that everything she has is in the US.
We have all heard stories about people doing whatever they can to escape poverty. We even live in a country that everybody is trying to get out of. We have heard so many and similar stories of hardships that we have become indifferent and would no longer listen to other people's pain.
Chieko, given life by the very raw Rinko Kikuchi, is a deaf-mute Japanese girl who can only communicate through sign language and lip reading. She's emotionally estranged from her father and is deeply hurt by the death of her mother who, she claims, understood her.
She desperately craves attention and wants to be loved and appreciated. Teenage boys, dense as they are, got turned off when they found out that she's a deaf-mute. To get their attention, Chieko, took off her panties and lifted up her skirt to show "the hairy monster" to whoever would look. The stunt freaked the objects of her communications even more.
In her desperation, she committed the ultimate act of self-expression and was rejected by the handsome policeman who came to their apartment to ask her father about a rifle he gave to a Moroccan tourist guide, which was used to shoot an American woman. In the end, her father saw how emotionally frail and alone she was and finally reached out to her.
Among the four stories, it is Chieko's story that I can relate with most, but, I don't have the compulsion to show my version of the hairy monster to the public. I have always found it difficult to reveal myself to other people and I can only be fully at ease with my fellow weirdos and neurotics.
In the Bible, it is said that God scattered the builders of the tower, by confusing their languages, after their king shot an arrow to the sky. I don't think the builders intended to insult God.I believe they just wanted to be closer to Him.
My blog is my arrow that I have shot to the sky. A flying arrow is bound to fall somewhere and be found by someone. I am hoping that somebody out there would come across my blog and fully understand what I have to say.
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