The Culture Club (Film: Babel) November 17, 2007

This is the next study evening in a series of culture studies where something from the media (e.g. a book, a film, a music album) is discussed from a Christian perspective but the evening is for people of all faiths and people of no faith at all who want to explore the message behind the media.

The session will start at 5pm when we will watch the film on the big screen and discussion starts at 7:30pm and will end at 9pm latest.

There is no charge for this event.

FILM INFO
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The following text is taken from a Damaris article.

Director Alejandro González Iñárritu and his creative collaborator, Guillermo Arriaga seem to have a fascination with causal connections. This is particularly true in their latest film, Babel, the connections of which literally track to the ends of the Earth.

As in Amores Perros (2000) and 21 Grams (2003), their two previous collaborations, Babel (which won the best director award at Cannes in 2006) ties together four seemingly unconnected stories which eventually prove to be inextricably linked to one another.
. . . .
On one level, Babel is about the difficulty of human communication, but although the stories unfold in four countries and in five languages – English, Arabic, Spanish, Japanese and sign – language is only one of the barriers in the quest to being heard and understood. The film also explores the ways in which cultural assumptions and biases tend to obscure reality even when it should be clear, and how our perceived differences keep us from finding a human connection with one other. But once these stories come together, the thematic undercurrent previously mentioned about causal connections and the domino-like effect they have on those involved, powerfully rises to the surface.
. . . .
The film’s title is a reference to the biblical story in Genesis where humanity set out to build a tower to stretch up to heaven. But God decided to put a stop to this effort by confusing their language so they could not communicate with one another. In the film, the causal relationships put into motion a set of circumstances where language again becomes a barrier for people to communicate. So how is it resolved? The film makes a very provocative statement by its observance of a very subtle phenomenon: in the places where movement towards one another takes place, it is done through non-verbal language. Indeed, the film’s tag-line states ‘If you want to be understood, you have to listen’.

Previous Study Evenings
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This series continues to be popular. Previous evenings have looked at "The Zahir" (book), "Paradise Now" (film), "Life on Mars" (TV series), "Collateral" (film), "Arthur and George" (book), "Moulin Rouge" (film), the Robbie Williams album "Intensive Care", "Lost in Translation" (film), "Whale Rider" (film), "The Incredibles" (film), "The Da Vinci Code" (book), the U2 album "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" and "Chocolat" (film).