21 grams, Babel

Watched Babel. And 21 grams few days ago. Portrait of people who are not Happiness machines, for sure. Personally prefer 21 grams much more. It’s much more emotionally intense. Non-linear, fragmented stories act as strange attractor for mind. Great play of Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro and Naomi Watts . Babel has some very good dramatic moments too.  Alejandro González Iñárritu is undoubtedly master of portraying personal dramas. And Brad Pitt , Cate Blanchett  and Adriana Barraza play well.

Although movies have different stories, but share same underlying principle. Like in legend of Babel. God strikes one day, unpredictably, and makes chaos in existing order. Life become fragmented, structure of language as symbol for order, broken. How vulnerable is human being when known landscape disappears, how hard it is to re-build new order from broken pieces. Innocence and illusions are gone. Life opens itself as fresh, open wound…and shows its most primal and brutal face. Things are just happening, without any of our control on it. Spiralling down. Lost within world, lost within self.

While finally re-collecting pieces back, is becoming evident that things are invisible connected, part of same structure and influence each other. Like Butterfly effect in Chaos theory, like quantum entanglement.

“21 Grams” (2003) (Salon’s review)

Nov 21, 2003 | I haven’t quite made up my mind about “21 Grams.” It has definitely stuck with me, like one of those troubling dreams that the first cup of coffee can’t clear from your head. It’s a brave and admirable film, but not an entirely successful one. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s first feature, the amazing “Amores Perros,” was an unrelenting blast of rock en español color and energy, a blood-drenched joyride through the streets of Mexico City that also possessed a startling, and heartbreaking, philosophical depth. In this new movie, González Iñárritu comes north of the border, and the results feel a lot dingier and a fair bit more pedantic.

Paul Rivers movie quote (Sean Penn): “How many lives do we live? How many times do we die? They say we all lose 21 grams… at the exact moment of our death. Everyone. And how much fits into 21 grams? How much is lost? When do we lose 21 grams? How much goes with them? How much is gained? How much is gained? Twenty-one grams. The weight of a stack of five nickels. The weight of a hummingbird. A chocolate bar. How much did 21 grams weigh?”

Babel (2007) (BBC’s review)

According to the Christian legend that inspired Babel, language is the barrier that keeps the world’s masses from ascendancy. Handily the world also provides director Alejandro González Iñárritu with an epic stage to exercise his talent for multi-strand storytelling. Occasionally though it feels a little too scattered, so it doesn’t pack as big of a punch as his last film 21 Grams. Still, this is an uncommonly raw and startling portrait of humanity with glittering performances all round.

Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett have one of the more gripping storylines as a US couple stranded in the Moroccan desert. A stray bullet leaves Susan teetering between life and death but it also exposes a festering wound in her marriage to Richard. The situation breeds a palpable urgency with Iñárritu’s camera marking a quick passage of time as it bobs and weaves between them. Equally compelling are newcomers Boubker Ait El Caid and Said Tarchani as rival siblings playing with their father’s gun when the accident happens.

http://www.webdelsol.com/SolPix/sp-reviews60.htm

Bibo No Aozora”
Writtern, Composed and Performed by Ryuichi Sakamoto