WWW.RIDESIDE.NET

Finally saw Babel on DVD last night, and I didn't see this film discussed elsewhere on Rideside, so forgive me if I've missed it. I was really moved/touched by it, that suffocating feeling of failing to connect with your environment, language as a sometimes insurmountable wall which prevents communication rather than facilitating it (whether you speak the same language or not), escapism (both physical and chemical), etc. It's beautiful to watch - in fact, the first time through we watched it without subtitles (Huzb finds subtitles distracting, and they were only available in Dutch), and although we only understood the English & Spanish dialogue, the Morroccan and Japanese scenes were so meticulously performed, filmed and soundtracked that we were able to follow them perfectly well. We watched it again with the (Dutch) subtitles afterwards, and picked up a few aspects we'd missed - things which made the scenes even more affecting than the first time around. For me, that experience just heightened the sense of isolation in a crowd. I felt emotionally connected to the characters already from the first viewing, and the second viewing peeled away a layer of disconnection from them - but only one layer. On a side note, Huzb had never heard of the Tower of Babel, amazingly. Corby, the Anglican church is not doing its job! On the off-chance anyone else isn't familiar: And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Come, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And they said, Come, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children builded. And the Lord said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel (confusion); because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.