*_*
^_^
The other day, after he showed me his many “trophies” from his recent china trip, we chose to watch “Babel”… among all the others… (some of them, are just too old, for eg. “Stealth”, don’t know why he bought it, some are expected and predictable… ^_^ only “Babel”, besides the fact that I know it’s nominated for many awards in the Oscar, I didn’t know what it’s all about in fact… oh, besides another fact that, there’s Brad Pitt and other actors actresses all around the world)
Ok… we started the DVD… and I was multi-tasking in the beginning of the show, then, I went on to read the sypnosis on the DVD cover… err… he asked me, what does it say… my response was, “don’t know… don’t know where the ‘point’ is…”
After we watched for about 15 min, his turn to read the sypnosis… and his turn to say, “don’t know what’s the point!!”
There were 3 mini stages in the movie… Morocco, Mexico, and Tokyo… serious, for about 30 min, I seriously still couldn’t see any connection… so, I GRAB (with rage!!! Kakaka!!!) the DVD cover again, and had a glance at the chinese version of sypnosis!!! Eh!!!!!!!! It’s all totally different from the english version… (Light Bulb lit!!) oh, now, I know the ‘connection’…
I was frustrated throughout the first half of the show, cos, I still couldn’t grasp what the director was trying to deliver… (ooh!! Since when I’m so high-level… hehe, I ALWAYS AM!!!)
Now then, I was right on the track…
(it’ll contain spoilers!!!)
First, morocco, a nomadian family, father, mother, sister and 2 brothers… it all started with the father of the family passed a gun to his 2 sons, who helped look after the herds… then, 2 of them, started to shoot aimlessly and meaninglessly just to see how far a bullet can go… the younger one kept telling the elder brother that, the bullet can really go very very far, for eg. 3 miles!!! And he proved it…
On the other hand, there’s this couple of husband and wife on tour (brad pitt and cate)… where we can see that their marriage/relationship was under great tension… the first thing the husband said was something like he chose (for them) to come here, is because he likes it there (ie. Morocco) and obviously the wife didn’t enjoy it very much, or not at all!!!! She felt very insecure and uncomfortable in this type of place…
Then… there’s this pair of cute sister and brother kid, blonde, taken care by a mexican nanny, who’s planning to bring these 2 kids away to mexico for a short trip, to attend a wedding…
Far east, there’s this pair of father and daugther, where, the daughter handicapped with deafness… his wife/her mother has just killed herself without reason… and that brought even more ‘cold air’ and tension into this small family… (however, wow!! I’ve to say, the condominium that they stay, must be of a few million or even billion yen!!! It’s huge, the lobby was like big commercial building lobby… spacious, security system implemented… that’s never appeared in my daily japanese drama series…)
From wikipedia,
Babel (Hebrew: ???????; Bavel) is the name used in the Hebrew Bible for the city of Babylon (Akkadian Babilu), notable in Genesis as the supposed location of the Tower of Babel.
In Gen. 11:9, the name of Babel is etymologized by association with the Hebrew verb balal, "to confuse or confound": Balal is regarded as a contraction of earlier *balbal. The name bab-ilu in Akkadian means "gate of god" (from bab "gate" + ilu "god"). The word "bab-el" can also be seen to mean "gate of god" (from bab "gate" + el "god").
Genesis
Babel is mentioned in Genesis 10:10 as the home city of Nimrod.
[10] And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. [11] Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah, [12] And Resen between Nineveh and Calah: the same is a great city. (KJV)
According to Genesis 11:1-9, mankind, after the deluge, traveled from the mountain where the ark had rested, and settled in 'a plain in the land of Shinar' (or Senaar). Here, they attempted to build a city and a tower whose top might reach unto Heaven, the Tower of Babel.
The attempt to build the Tower of Babel had angered God who, in his anger, made each person involved speak a different language which ultimately halted the project and scattered and disconnected the people across the planet.
Of course… some of you may have already known the meaning/cotext even better than me… ^_^
Anyway… years ago, I’ve watched another japanese drama called “babel” as well.. however, it’s not much to do with languages, rather, mm… again, I was trying to understand what the production team was trying to say… I reckon, it’s more like… FIGHTING GOD!!! Cos, it’s a medical drama, where the 2 surgeons in there (an underground hospital) can do miracles to whoever came seeking for help. For example, they helped produced Olympic atheletes by injecting some drugs, but the side effect was, after a few years, the gal who got it, would become bigger and fatter… but what she wanted was to be an olympic winner once in a life, so, that’s the price she paid for… another case that I remembered was, another gal got fixed with a pianist’s hands who’s passed away, and thus she could play piano… ok… I know, it’s more like unrealistic story, but then… it’s interesting…
And now, there’s this movie…
The ‘ideas’ that I gather… were
The 2 brothers, the younger brother… mm… I reckon, he was born err… ‘bad’ (in chinese, there’s a say, everybody was always born ‘good’… however… mm… I tend to think that, the percentage is 50-50, some people ARE born ‘bad’, some ARE ‘good’, that… I supposed, is the ‘decision maker’ in each and every individual, if one is exposed to a bad environment, whether he/she’ll become bad from good, and vice versa… sometimes, we like to blame on ‘influence’ surrounding us… however, why?? are there people who’re always not influenced… but yet, can even bring changes to othres)
Oh… back to the 2 brothers… so, the younger brother insisted on his ‘skill’ to shoot the gun… and eventually… they caused some ‘accident’…
The elder brother tried to stop the younger one for all his crazy act (he’s one of those who really like to prove himself to others, and he peeped while his sister, not sure if it’s real sister or not, was changing… see!!! Bad nature!! Cos… in the wilderness… no internet, no TV, no commercial brochure, only 1 family in the middle of nowhere… a kid, probably less than 10 years old, how much “bad” influence from outside he can get???)
Brother tried to stop him, father tried to lecture him and bring him back on path, he just won’t listen…
After a short argument the husband & wife went back into the tour bus and started their journey again… then… suddenly, a flying bullet out of nowhere, shot into the wife’s neck…
As for this couple… they just won’t communicate properly… he won’t listen, she already refused to speak anymore…
As for the japanese father-daughter… she won’t and she can’t speak… (due to hearing, she’s mute as well) and the father… wouldn’t know how to communicate with this problematic teenage daughter…
To her, she can’t hear, and others won’t ‘listen’ to her anyway!!!!
And lastly… the mexico side of story… the nanny, brought the 2 children (hehe, they’re the children of the husband & wife far in morocco), her nephew drove, to mexico… after a happy, noisy and enjoyable mexican wedding party.. they’re on their way home (super late at night)… and at the border, the car was stopped by the border police… however, maybe the nephew was drunk, maybe it’s because he’s a gun, or maybe it’s because he was just getting impatient, the police tried to get him to cooperate, he just won’t listen (oh!! By the way, police was american police, and they’re mexican… ie. Language barrier again!!) and he’s trying to explain, police also just won’t listen (cos, it’s 2 mexican with 2 american kids behind the car, looks like a kidnap)… in the end… he drove away ‘illegally’ and when he found out that, the police was chasing him… he dropped the aunt and the 2 kids in the middle of the dessert…
These stories in different sites, some happened parallelly, some happened just a few days, or a while ago/after to each other… but I’m sure you won’t get to see the whole movie in chronological order… ^_^
Well… this is as far as I can get… I mean, trying to ‘understand’ the movie… ^_^
I’m sure there’s more… but this is as far as I can get….
I’m not a linguist myself, and I definitely won’t understand the beauty of understanding languages and languages…
Like many of the others…
(let me side track a little bit!!! I remember in this japanese dorama series “TRICK”, the mother of the girl Yamada always likes to say “Words/Language” has its own power, don’t misuse them!!”… ^_^ she’s a caligraphy teacher!!)
Anyway… my understanding is… language is supposed to be used to ‘communicate’… (oh!! Just for your information, I didn’t attend any communication class as well.. so, I may say something wrong yo!! ^_^)
Therefore… mm… in actual fact, as long as you understand… understand the true meaning of what’s in my head… it doesn’t matter if the language is correct, or if it’s beautiful, or if it’s powerful…
Thanks to the poets and great authors that we see the beautiful side of languages being used in different way, but also thanks go the poets and great authors (especially those chinese ones) people are ‘cheated’ into the trend of deceitful and fully decorated pretentious languages… ^_^
And therefore… language, as for now… instead of being used for proper communication, … is used to attack, to deceive, to poison, to hurt, to cover up, to pretend, to sell and so on…
Worse is… when it’s used onto our loved ones…
mm… I supposed… we will never get to the day to see the Tower of Babel!!!
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