Hail bin Laden! Hail Bush! Thanks to your evil we have decent films again! I utterly subscribe to the notion that in order to get good art you need serious social conflict – if not downright social crises - and you and your lackeys have provided us with that. I feel reminded of the incredible films that came out of the US in the seventies, or the literature that was produced in Russia a hundred years earlier, and of the incredible upsurge in creative (and spiritual) endeavor, innovation and output in the first two decades of the twentieth century. Cinema lets us observe how the world is shedding its skin and what a great and terrible time it is to be alive!
First there is the remarkable display of British cinema this year starting with the Bond who is blond, the Bond who is rough. Although he “only” got nominated for a Bafta, Bond is perhaps a good indicator of what seems to be happening in British film. Bond has a credibility and a grittiness, which we have not witnessed since the days when Sean C. beat the crap out of Soviet spies on trains. Bond has some serious problems to deal with, problems that seem all too real these days. To the detriment of all of us off screen, Bond has entered feasibility again. Britain is living in fear, you can smell it when you watch Casino Royale, or V for Vendetta, or Children of Men, or Notes on a Scandal. Queen and country are afraid not only of the "other", but, as these films suggest, of themselves. And they should be, living as they are under constant surveillance, unable to take a single step without being filmed, photographed, recorded, stalked by their own machinery and dragged into the quagmire of lunatic and megalomaniacal policies. The new Bond can do more than take apart terrorist plots; he can break into M’s apartment and nick her password. Seriously, could you imagine Pierce B. do that? Never in a million years! His pretty Bond was too busy choosing the right aftershave and having a manicure. Things are going wrong in Britain and blond Bond will not set them straight, I feel. He will just guide us down the dark and frightening corridors into the depth of the threats as they could be. And we know that you can’t match reality, no matter how much imagination and how big a film budget you have…
And then there is the historic event on screen, Babel. 21 Grams was magnificent, last year’s Syriana was a masterpiece, but this really is one of the most memorable films I have ever seen! Let me begin with the final shot which is perhaps one of the most moving and exquisite in cinema history. It captures all the pain of our human incapability to communicate, which results in our naked, numb, isolated stance at the brink of the abyss. There we stand shaking, unable to formulate our fear, facing the rejection of an indifferent world. It is this indifference which makes us deaf to the love and care of those that are willing to hold our hand. They suffer just as much as we do, yet they reach out to prevent us from falling. Yes, this shot of a father holding his shivering, naked, deaf-mute child above a chasm of modern alienation is what art is all about.
Yet this is only one of the film’s remarkable achievements. It is a bold attempt at global narrative without losing a moment to unimportant detail. Our western, all too hasty labeling of “others” (“terrorists!”, “illegal immigrants!”), the cowardice and selfishness of those that are allegedly our allies and friends (the bus-passengers, the Japanese best girl-friend), and the foolishness and recklessness of our decisions no matter how well meant they are (taking the kids across the border, giving our hunting guide a gun) all find profound treatment. Babel carefully spins delicate threads across cultures and languages to show us the fragility of our situation on this planet, and the universality of tragic family experiences. Our contemporary Babel is not confined to the various languages we speak. In fact, the film lets us experience that linguistic variety is no obstacle anymore. Instead it is our incapability to speak to each other, beginning with those closest to us all the way to various governments (the US and Moroccan government) that makes our life so precarious. We can never know each other completely or everything that happened (notice the movie’s Fleance-phenomenon of loose ends), but if we do not try to formulate and to listen, we will have to pay a horrific price (a wife, a brother, a son, an existence). It is a brilliant film that will definitely get a place of honor right next to the likes of Syriana, 21 grams, Mulholland Drive, and Eyes Wide Shut.
