Would the pedophile in you like to see a little middle-eastern boy masturbate? What if he was jacking-off to incestuous thoughts of his ugly sister?
Would the pervert in you like to see a somewhat-attractive white woman pee? What if she was soaked in blood after being shot and making out at the same time?
Would the dirty-old-man in you like to see an oversexed deaf-mute Japanese girl strip naked and throw herself at a cop? What if her lovely childhood involved witnessing her mother blow her brains out after unearthing the girl’s incestuous relationship with her dad?
I attempted to watch Babel today; without subtitles.
I ended up blinding myself with a nearby pencil.
One, I didn’t realize that there was an incestuous relationship with the Japanese girl and her father! I should try watching again.. Two, the scenes of sexual acts in this movie are surely something that don’t go well. But, don’t you see the yearning of that deaf girl that she needs love? That the Mexican nanny, cares more for those kids than herself? That despite being in the situation of being awkwardly attacked, the old village woman, tries to comfort the white lady? This movie, as many others, brought something more out of what makes each of us human. As I would think, this movie depicts the sometimes hidden, and sometimes not as hidden, facets of us as human beings.
Lastly, I have been reading your blog on and off. It is great effort, indeed! (including the pix)
“One, I didn’t realize that there was an incestuous relationship with the Japanese girl and her father!” — You didn’t because I made that bit up.
Considering the father comes home to see his naked daughter (probably about to leap from the balcony of a high-rise apartment) and doesn’t yell out hysterically asking her to get clothed or what the fuck she’s doing on the ledge, and instead proceeds to walk up to her and hold her (somewhat creepily), I figured it wasn’t that much of a stretch. Besides, I didn’t realise I needed to watch this movie with subtitles and there was a lot of the story I just had to make up as it went along, like needing to make sense of why the deaf-mute girl was so messed up. (Parental abuse, of course!)
I realise what the movie was trying to get across. I just felt it was
– gratuitous at many points,
– downright boring for the most part, and
– the stories were not closely-enough linked to each other nor were the characters well-enough developed that I cared.
And finally, welcome and I’m glad you’ve enjoyed your stay!
I found many similarities between this and the 2005 best picture Oscar winner “Crash”. You should watch that one too.
I’ve seen “Crash.” I found it poignant and a very intense experience. I loved it.
I knew nothing about “Babel” before getting into it. Perhaps the two movies are similar in their mechanism of delivery, but I feel “Crash” did a wonderful job (made me care about the characters, and the stories were so much more intimately tied together), while “Babel” fell flat on its face (for me).