LiFe oF gUohU...cHp 215
caught babel with qiang and jasper last night and it totally left us clueless on what the director is trying to portray. so much of an award winning film that we were left puzzled and confused.
did a little research online after we got home and had a brief discussion with jasper over it. and after which we came to a conclusion that it will help a lot if we understood the origin of the word "babel". interestingly, as according to wikipedia, the word "babel came to means :
"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"). "
quoted from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babeland that from another derivation,
the word babel comes from the Bible story at Babylon, where the people thought they could live without God. In order to get to heaven, they constructed a enormous tower, the Tower of Babel. God was not pleased and to punish them he destroyed the tower and divided the people into different cultures, so they would have problems communicating with each other.
with that i thought i understood what the director is trying to portrayed from the four short stories which somewhat every character in each of the 4 story is connected with each other. and that effective communication is vital.
the synopsis of the movie is as quoted.
"In the remote sands of the Moroccan desert, a rifle shot rings out - detonating a chain of events that will link an American tourist couple’s frantic struggle to survive, two Moroccan boys involved in an accidental crime, a nanny illegally crossing into Mexico with two American children and a Japanese teen rebel whose father is sought by the police in Tokyo."
in my opinion, i thought it will be a a lot better to allow the viewers to know what or hw the word babel comes abt and that alone will allow us viewers to appreciate what the director is trying to drive across. nevertheless, it's quite thought-provoking as i went thru the 2 hr long movie. what's more, who am i to judge the director for his film? my capacity of a viewer?
interesting. and i came upon a more interesting fact. the film which i watched recently, apocalypto, depicted the a tower of babel look-alike in the one of the mayan tribe in the scene which shows the sacrification of jaguar paw's tribemen.
and to that, after thinking back abt apocalypto and my previous post, i realised that i missed out quite a fair bit of my thoughts. dun tink i want to elaborate more abt the movie though. the main pt which i got was really survival of the fittest and i realise that there are more hidden details which mel glibson cleverly hid in the many scenes.
and speaking of which, the movies i watched recently spoke of language not in my tongue and very thought provoking. and are all rated M18. interesting.
and i ought to be studying nw. staying at home isn't as effective as i thought.
