cbsreview: BABEL

There is this story in Genesis wherein God was infuriated by the constant disaccord between laborers building the Tower of Babel, and in their refusal to speak in unison - or in one voice - He bestowed upon them the curse of miscommunication through a confusion of tongues. So goes the yarn about the birth of multiple languages.

And then there are the words of St. Augustine in Confessions from where Ludwig Wittgenstein jumpstarted his treatise Philosophical Investigations to develop his notion of the language game - or the intimate and pervasive links between language and forms of life:

"When they (my elders) named some object, and accordingly moved towards something, I saw this and I grasped that the thing was called by the sound they uttered when they meant to point it out. Their intention was shown by their bodily movements, as it were the natural language of all peoples: the expression of the face, the play of the eyes, the movement of other parts of the body, and the tone of voice which expresses our state of mind in seeking, having, rejecting, or avoiding something. Thus as I heard words repeatedly used in their proper places in various sentences, I gradually learn to understand what objects they signified; and after I had trained my mouth to form these signs, I used them to express my own desires."

As I went through this experience of watching Alejandro Inarritu's third installement of a trilogy that screams of the true influence of chance upon our lives, I began to trace it's connection to the history and mystery of languages. Easily, the story of the Tower of Babel was a direct representation. And with certain hints, Wittgenstein's notion proved influential, too. Language, as the film tells us, serves other purposes than the assertion of truth or falsity.

Like "Amorres Perros" and "21 Grams" before it, Babel contains three separate stories that are somehow intertwined by the presence of what I call life's 4 Cs: chance, circumstance, coincidence, and chain reaction. But unlike the first two, Babel's stories appear so real, so true, I am positive stuff like that may have been happening elsewhere, at any time. Truth is stranger than fiction, and more so in the case of this fiction that does not seem strange - as in preposterous - at all.

Here's the story, where the conflict from the ensuing circumstances interestingly started from an act of gratitude. A big gamer from Japan gives his rifle to his guide after a hunting expedition in Morocco, apparently because he was a very good guide. The Moroccan guide, in turn, sells the rifle to a guy who raises goats so they can get rid of the wolves preying on their livelihood. The guy hands over the rifle to his two sons-goat herders who are so young (probably 12 and 11) they always play prank with the rifle.

One day, while the boys herd the goats from atop the mountains, a tourist bus passes and the younger boy dares the other to shoot at the bus. He shoots, and misses. The younger boy takes aim himself, and being the better shot, hits the bus. (They take this casually, for lack of discernment and better judgment, and realizes the bus was hit only when it comes to a full stop).

The bullet whiffs through the bus window and hits a passenger (Cate Blanchett) who is on a tour of Morocco with her husband (Brad Pitt) as they try to preserve their dwindlingmarriage. The crime happens in the mountains, and due to lack of better technology and communication (language, see!) the information initially dispatched is that the shooting has terrorist connections.

Because of this incident, the couple's journey back home to the States (San Diego) is delayed, dismaying the Mexican nanny taking care of the couple's two small children because her own son is getting married and she could not find a substitute nanny for them for that day. She decides to do something which anybody in her position, under similar circumstances, will probably do: she brings the kids with her to Mexico.

On the way back to the States, while being inquested at the border, something happens to the nanny, the driver (her drunk nephew played by Gael Garcia Bernal), and the kids.

In Japan, the Japanese hunter is being questioned by the police himself in an attempt to clear the issue of the gun's ownership (to resolve whether or not it came from the black market, which is usually the source of terrorists' arms). On his own, he is fighting his demons, too, due to the death of his wife (this sub-story is actually a distraction), as well as the crisis affecting her daughter (deaf and dumb, again, a conflict in language!)

The film ends in Japan, in this scene involving the Japanese hunter, and it cleverly tells us in a way that this mystery of life affords for one more c: cycle.
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postscript: I remember an incident as a kid when I was a hardcore fanatic of Toyota basketball team. I was going to see its game against Crispa but for some reasons I did not make it to the coliseum. Toyota lost, and in a fit of anger I was telling my friends if I were there the outcome could have been reversed, that my presence could have changed the tide. They thought I was crazy and philosophized that I was too insignificant compared to the bigness of the event as to have caused the slightest change in circumstances that ultimately led to a Toyota defeat.

But then there is this "butterfly effect", reiterated by Rene Rodriguez in the Miami Herald, as the idea that "a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil causes a tiny change in the atmosphere that could snowball into a tornado in Texas", which is tantamount to a scientific declaration that every act is significant and a potential source of a very significant event. At the coliseum, I could have stepped on the shoe of a fellow fan, whould would have swung at me but missed and instead hit the wife of Ato Co, who would have come to her rescue and refused to re-enter in the game, and in the process not being able to shoot that game-winning buzzer-beating shot.

This afternoon at Barnes and Noble, I chanced upon this book containing Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay, Compensation, and somehow I found a discourse I can quote to end this post:

"Every act rewards itself, or, in other words, integrates itself, in a twofold manner; first, in the thing, or, in real nature; and secondly, in the circusmtance, or, in apparent nature."

"The dice of God are always loaded."