January 16, 2007
Babel and Wordplay
Over the past two weeks, I saw both Babel and Wordplay. Babel is the Golden Globe winner for best picture drama, starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. Wordplay is a documentary about competitive crossword puzzling. These movies are in no way related except that both titles indicate something about words or communication. I was suprised by my reaction to both. In short, I really enjoyed Wordplay and I was underwhelmed by Babel.
Babel takes place on 3 continents and 6 languages. The storyline follows three seemingly unrelated events which occur around the globe. In the end, all three storylines are connected in some manner. First, a husband and wife in Morocco are accidentally shot by 2 young Berber goatherd while touring the countryside in an attempt to repair their broken relationship. Meanwhile, their nanny takes their two children to Mexico for the wedding of her son. On the trip back, when the US border patrol asks too many quesitons, the nanny's cousin (who's driving them back) attempts to flee. Of course, they are successful, but then the nanny and kids are trapped in the desert. Finally, a deaf mute teenage Japanese girl struggles to win the attention and affection of a man, any man.
Personally, I thought the Japanese girl was the best story line. Exploring how one might experience the world as a deaf mute was really cool. In one scene, she heads out to a dance club. What must that be like, if there's no sound? How would you keep track of the people you came with if you can't speak to anyone? Sure, maybe someone might know sign language, but that seems like a low probability occurance at a dance cllub.
The third story line is tied in when the Japanese girl's father turns out to have given a hunting rifle to the Berber goathers father after a successful hunting trip. Of everything, this seemed like the weakest connection. I thought it added very little to the storyline at all, other than offering a connection between the third plot line.
The message of the movie seems to be something about the interconnectedness of our global world. And how emotion can be communicated without words, or in words you don't understand. While I agree with this message, I just wasn't all that blown away by the movie itself. The acting was quite good, the dialog was good, the story lines were mostly interesting. But I wouldn't say it was a life changing event. I also suspect that my expectations were set far too high by all the hype surrounding the movie.
On the other hand, Wordplay is a documentary about competitive crosswording which stars no one in particular. If you don't know what competitive crossword puzzling is, neither did I before I saw this movie. Turns out there's an annual competition in Stamford, CT (of all places) at which Will Shortz, editor of the NYTimes crossword puzzle, presides over a series of timed puzzle solvings. Anyone can enter, but most of the people are REALLY good. The people who do crossword puzzling competitively are astonishingly good and geeky. As someone who's worked online for 10 years, I feel like I have a pretty good handle on the geek spectrum, and these people are WAY on the edge. But it was fun to watch them do it. These are people who solve Sunday NYTimes crossword puzzles in less than three minutes. Diana and I do crosswords, and we're lucky if we _finish_ at all! Sure we can do Monday and Tuesday, but from then on, it's no sure thing that we finish. And forget about Sunday. Sometimes we can get like 3 entries.
In the movie, they interview famous people who are crossword addicts - Bill Clinton, Jon Stewart, etc. But their fame is really incidental. All the questions and discussion is around how they do the puzzle and why they do it. It was really cool to see all these folks who do puzzle and hear why they like it. Most said things like they like the way it forces you to play with language and how you can escape your surroundings for a while. This is almost certainly why Diana and I do them.
Also, the movie has interviews with crossword puzzle creators. I've never known how people make crosswords. It was fascinating. Turns out that all crossword puzzles are symmetrical. I never noticed that in years of looking at them. Also, there's never more than one-sixth of the puzzle that's black squares. I'm sure these aren't life changing factoids, but they are fun factoids which I never knew before.
All in all, I really liked Wordplay. It showed some interesting insights into a habit that lots of people have, including Diana and me. It explored why people seem attracted to it, and what happens when you take that attraction to an extreme.
I was suprised that I liked Wordplay so much and Babel so little. I would still recommend that you see both, but don't set your expectations too high and you'll have a great time.
Posted by dave at January 16, 2007 09:43 PM | TrackBack