Friday into Saturday morning was a strange time, awake after the evening siesta until the early hours and using the time to eventually to re boot the computer with the special pack of updates which take over an hour to download. The accompanying notice warned that the process could affect the sound programmes and cause other problems and provided information and a help liner if such problems arose. Fortunately some hours later they do not. I had thought of going into Newcastle perhaps for the match live at the Shearers bar or for the cinema but now I imagine I will be sleepy getting the body clock completely out of synchronisation with the majority of humanity in my part of the northern hemisphere.
There were flurries of snow around 8 but for the rest of the day there has been bright sunshine but very cold I wrapped up warm to clear the three remaining hanging baskets and plant tulips. I worked well but retreated to the warm when the task was completed leaving sorting the rest of the outside until a warmed time. The main new work of the morning was to photograph completed sets
The post arrives as I enjoy an early soup and make a sardune salad before settling down on the settee to watch Babel, an almost unbearable to watch two hours twenty minutes of profound human suffering, mental and physical, misunderstandings and communication failure..
There are those who can argue that this is a film about determinism, of cause and effect stretching across continents, but there is also something for those who prefer chaos theory and the Butterfly effect.
In Morroco, a peasant goat herder is troubled by wild dogs and persuades a neighbour to sell him a powerful rifle and amunition, He has two sons who constantly fight and try to prove themselves against each other due to different temperaments with the elder fearful of the weapon and unable to use it effectively which is something the younger is able to do.
Elsewhere in the country an american couple are trying to repair their mariage as part of a tour party and commence a coach journey which will take them close to where the goat herder lives. Back home the Mexican woman who is caring for the children of yje younger couple unable to find another carer takes them on a trip into Mexico for a family wedding, driven by a younger relative.
In Japan a deaf teenage school girl wrestles with her confused feelings brought up by her businessman father after the death of her mother.
In Morrocco the elder of the two brothers shoots and misses the predator raiding the goats and doubts that weapons has the range boasted by the former owner so the younger brother proves this is so by aiming at a tourist bus in the distance. He shoots the wife of the American couple played by Cate Blanchette and when the coach stops the brothers realise that they are in trouble. Father who has been to market returns late because the road has eben closed. Theer has been a torrorist attack and american woman has been killed.
In Mexio a great party is underway at the wedding and the two children are enjoying themselves in what is becoming a very long day.
At the coach Brad Pitt becomes desperate when he finds that the nearest hospital is over an hour’s drive away, The coach driver knows of a village nearby where trhere is a doctor and they go there, The doctor is able to stem the flow of blood from the shoulder wound and and old woman uses hashish tp help his wife relax and ease the paid. The police arrive with no ambulance saying the American want to send a helocopter but there are diplomatic issues because of what appears to be a terrorist attack. The film brilliantly captures the horror and the helplessness of the situation.
Darkness falls in Mexio and the party is in full swing with daning and lots fo wine, The carer of the two children says they have to return because the boy has an appointment in the morning while relatives query whether the young relative who has brought them is fit to drive.
Darkness has also fallen in Japan where the teenager has gone out for the evening with friends and a party of young men they had seen earlier in the day. Her father is out on business until late. Earlier on returning home the daughter encounters two police men who wish to talk to her father and she assume this concerns the death of her mother.
Moroccan Police goes in search of the attackers of the vehicle and find cartridges and recent goat droppings. They quickly establish who owned a rifle in the area and sieze upon the man and his wife treating them roughly. The man explaisn that he was giben the rifle by a Japanese tourist and his handcuffed wife goes to find the photograph which shows the two men together the Japanese man is the businessman father of the girl.
Because it is dark the young Mexican driver decides nto tot ake the cross country back into the USA and feos to the border coprssing where trhe polcie are suspicious of the couple ansd that they have two young white children with them so when they are questioned further and asked to move the vicle to one side for furthr questioning, the young hot man,worse for drinks jumps the line and goes off into the darnkess at great speed terrifying the children and their carer,
The police believe the former owner oft he rifle are go in vomvoey to find the goat herder meeting up witht eh two boys who send them off in the wrong direction. The boys return home and explain what has happened to their father. They show him where the gun is hidden and father rakes his two boys off to relatives
Back in the desert on the American side of the border, the young man orders his aunt out of the car with the two children saying he will return for them. They have to spend the night with only a torch in the blanket darkness, not knowing where they are.
Back in Japan the young girl leaves the disco where her friends are all pairing off and who earlier had attacked teh fact that she was a virgin. It is how the Director deal with sexual curiosity and experimentation among young people that created some controversy but which in my judgment brings added depth to this film. Yesterday I mentioned watching the Inspector Wexford police series where the underlying issue was the tendency of parents not to listen to their children, especially when they are gripped with adult passions and love and which for most females still are integral to each other.
The daughter in this film is no different , she longs to be held and to be comforted by anyone, her mother dead, her father remote and under peer pressure she resorts to exhibitionism when rejects by boys her own age when they find she is deaf, and then when she makes an advance on her dentist during the moment when his assistant has left the room.
Returning home on her own she asks the janitor to contact the police and to ask for them to call to see as she wants to talk to them about her father. The younger of the the teo polciemen arrives and she tells him that her father had nothing to do with the dath of her mother who had jumped fromt the balcony of their skyscraper home. She explains using pen and paper that she was the witbess to the death of her mother. The polcieman explains that he wants to talk her father about his rifle seen inthe same picture drmaed on the wall. When the policeman goes to depart the girl strips naked and offers herself to the policeman. He handles the situation well ina fatherly way and she gives him a note to read after he has left, As he leave the building eh encounters her father who confirms about the gun and polcie asks him to call at the officer in the morning to make a formal statement. He expresses sympathy for the loss of his wife throwing herself off the balcony. The father explaisn that his wife had shot herself and his daughter had been the first person to find her. She had not jumped from the balcony.
Back in the desert it is morning and the carer wakes too late to attract a passing boder patrol, Shje attempts to walk to safety with the children but the youngest girl who she carries begisn to ract to ehar, She finds shelter for them and leaves the two alone while she goes off for barely able to stand on her feet.
Returning to the Morocco, villagers have crated a compact stretcher to move the injured wife, as the coach party has driven on as some fo teh apssnergs become exhausted and ill with the heat and the absence of air conditioning because of the ened to conserve fuel, Several the passenegrs fearful of their own lives have wanetd to abndonet the woman and her husband. An American medical helicopter arrives the wife has rushed to surery where the doctor queries if he will be able to save life left alone her arm.
Sent in the wrong direction the police have reyruned to the former owner of teh rifle and accused gim of misleading them. The wife offers to show them where the family live. She spots the father and the two sons making their wescape across the mountains and the polcie stop and open fire when the trio fail to stop, The youngest son sies the weapon after his brother his show and opens fire hitting one officer. The Polcie fire back and the elder brother is hit again.
In the Texas/Californian desert the carer attracts rhe attention of the border patrol who do not listen to her pleras to get the children and take her tro the enarest police station for questioning and enquiries. The children are left alone in the midday sunshine.
In Morrocco the younger boy has through dowen the gun, raised his gands and pleads to the polcie to kill him and save his brother, He admits he ahd fired the shot. The police chief looks down at the child in disbelief and beleif that this is not act of terrorism but a tragedy the result of a child getting hold of a gun.
On Japan father finds his naked daughter on the balcony contemplating the ending of her life and she holds out a hand to him and he holders her,
The dead older brother is taken off the mountain.
The Mexican carer is offered voluntary deportation after living and working for fifteen years in the USA or worse if she insists on going to trial and returns to her birthland to be greeted by her nephew with the fate of her other relative unknown.
The would be terrorist incident has become world wide news, The woman survives and leaves hospital to join her family.
I have been a risk taker from becoming a teenager but I have also tried to understand he nature of the risk and the potential implications.
The Mexican woman deserved to be deported because she broke the first rule of caring for children she put her own interests above those of the children. She was very lucky not to have been prosecuted, irrespective of whether harm had come their way. I would lock up the relative who drove while drunk and then abandoned his relative and two very small children to the desert at night. Given according to the film this was not the first time. I would not let him out unless I could guarantee the safety of others which would mean a strictly supervised on licence regime. I also censure those at the party who allowed the children to be taken off by a drunk man.
The young Morrocan boy contributed to his own death, goading his younger brother, resentful that the boy constantly received paternal praise and showing no regard for the feelings and interests of others. Obviously his father carries the great responsibility and should be punished irrespective of the loss of one son because he gave the weapons to the children to use and provided them with no instruction about safety. The Child who shot the woman, in real life could have killed her or caused a major accident and will need custodial care until he has understood the seriousness of his behaviour and the authorities are satisfied that he is unlikely to do something similar again. Nor is the boy’s mother immune from criticism. OK so she is an uneducated peasant brought up to be the slave of male but she should not have allowed her sons to use weapons especially when not under the direct supervision of an adult. Those in the government of the country who did not give priority to the provision of education and the emancipation of women are also accountable.
The Japanese father may have felt he was foing his best but he ahd found himself with the responsibility of caring for the a teenmage girl who was also deaf. His first responsibility was to the welfare of his daughter and ensuring that she was properly supervised ina dn out of school and that she had substitute maternal education and guidance.
What on earth was Brad Pitt and his wife thinking off leaving their children with someone who clearly lacked trustworthyness and what was worse to go off toa country where terrorists acts had been committed. However when it comes to dealing with individuals in similar situations I would first take account that often the treatment is worse than cure and brutalising people caught in such situations and locking them away for any length of time without concentrating or reformation and rehabilitation is not just counter productive but also dangerous.
It was one the great films of that year 2006 and should stand the test of time. The film highlights the complexity of resolving conflicts between races cultures, religions and political structures added to which there is the problem of language. The film also brought out that all of us in every situation however insignificant approach matters from our historical viewpoints and experience and tend not to react according to just the circumstances unfolding before. We all need to stop blaming governments and others for the problems However the film is not entertainment and I have doubts about the effectiveness of such films among the unenlightened as they tend to reinforce the views and feelings of those who already have the knowledge and have attempted to put it into pratice.
I qwent to bed at 2pm and slept until just before 3 int ime to listen to the first half of Newcastle at Chelsea, But overcome wih tired I went back to bed at 4 and slpet thorugh untio after half past six. Stricly come dancing is becoming impossible abd everyone tries to recover from houding out John Seageant. Similarly the efforts of Simona nd Louis to fix the result is unacceptable, There have been six female vocalists of superior quality to the boy group and Mr Cowell‘s 15 year old young man. So far we have lost two superior females singers to the need for Louis and Simon to reian acts until the final if possible. The public audience is being fooled to an extent although this week they put the boys in sing off and the judges failed in the professional duty to put through the better singer giving the better performance. They almost admitted as much to their credit.
The unthinkable is happening as Arsene Wenger is losing his magic touch as the team lost badly to Manchestwer City who are still from being the finished article. Newcastle managed to hold out for a 0.0 draw at Chelsea which is no meanm feet.
There were flurries of snow around 8 but for the rest of the day there has been bright sunshine but very cold I wrapped up warm to clear the three remaining hanging baskets and plant tulips. I worked well but retreated to the warm when the task was completed leaving sorting the rest of the outside until a warmed time. The main new work of the morning was to photograph completed sets
The post arrives as I enjoy an early soup and make a sardune salad before settling down on the settee to watch Babel, an almost unbearable to watch two hours twenty minutes of profound human suffering, mental and physical, misunderstandings and communication failure..
There are those who can argue that this is a film about determinism, of cause and effect stretching across continents, but there is also something for those who prefer chaos theory and the Butterfly effect.
In Morroco, a peasant goat herder is troubled by wild dogs and persuades a neighbour to sell him a powerful rifle and amunition, He has two sons who constantly fight and try to prove themselves against each other due to different temperaments with the elder fearful of the weapon and unable to use it effectively which is something the younger is able to do.
Elsewhere in the country an american couple are trying to repair their mariage as part of a tour party and commence a coach journey which will take them close to where the goat herder lives. Back home the Mexican woman who is caring for the children of yje younger couple unable to find another carer takes them on a trip into Mexico for a family wedding, driven by a younger relative.
In Japan a deaf teenage school girl wrestles with her confused feelings brought up by her businessman father after the death of her mother.
In Morrocco the elder of the two brothers shoots and misses the predator raiding the goats and doubts that weapons has the range boasted by the former owner so the younger brother proves this is so by aiming at a tourist bus in the distance. He shoots the wife of the American couple played by Cate Blanchette and when the coach stops the brothers realise that they are in trouble. Father who has been to market returns late because the road has eben closed. Theer has been a torrorist attack and american woman has been killed.
In Mexio a great party is underway at the wedding and the two children are enjoying themselves in what is becoming a very long day.
At the coach Brad Pitt becomes desperate when he finds that the nearest hospital is over an hour’s drive away, The coach driver knows of a village nearby where trhere is a doctor and they go there, The doctor is able to stem the flow of blood from the shoulder wound and and old woman uses hashish tp help his wife relax and ease the paid. The police arrive with no ambulance saying the American want to send a helocopter but there are diplomatic issues because of what appears to be a terrorist attack. The film brilliantly captures the horror and the helplessness of the situation.
Darkness falls in Mexio and the party is in full swing with daning and lots fo wine, The carer of the two children says they have to return because the boy has an appointment in the morning while relatives query whether the young relative who has brought them is fit to drive.
Darkness has also fallen in Japan where the teenager has gone out for the evening with friends and a party of young men they had seen earlier in the day. Her father is out on business until late. Earlier on returning home the daughter encounters two police men who wish to talk to her father and she assume this concerns the death of her mother.
Moroccan Police goes in search of the attackers of the vehicle and find cartridges and recent goat droppings. They quickly establish who owned a rifle in the area and sieze upon the man and his wife treating them roughly. The man explaisn that he was giben the rifle by a Japanese tourist and his handcuffed wife goes to find the photograph which shows the two men together the Japanese man is the businessman father of the girl.
Because it is dark the young Mexican driver decides nto tot ake the cross country back into the USA and feos to the border coprssing where trhe polcie are suspicious of the couple ansd that they have two young white children with them so when they are questioned further and asked to move the vicle to one side for furthr questioning, the young hot man,worse for drinks jumps the line and goes off into the darnkess at great speed terrifying the children and their carer,
The police believe the former owner oft he rifle are go in vomvoey to find the goat herder meeting up witht eh two boys who send them off in the wrong direction. The boys return home and explain what has happened to their father. They show him where the gun is hidden and father rakes his two boys off to relatives
Back in the desert on the American side of the border, the young man orders his aunt out of the car with the two children saying he will return for them. They have to spend the night with only a torch in the blanket darkness, not knowing where they are.
Back in Japan the young girl leaves the disco where her friends are all pairing off and who earlier had attacked teh fact that she was a virgin. It is how the Director deal with sexual curiosity and experimentation among young people that created some controversy but which in my judgment brings added depth to this film. Yesterday I mentioned watching the Inspector Wexford police series where the underlying issue was the tendency of parents not to listen to their children, especially when they are gripped with adult passions and love and which for most females still are integral to each other.
The daughter in this film is no different , she longs to be held and to be comforted by anyone, her mother dead, her father remote and under peer pressure she resorts to exhibitionism when rejects by boys her own age when they find she is deaf, and then when she makes an advance on her dentist during the moment when his assistant has left the room.
Returning home on her own she asks the janitor to contact the police and to ask for them to call to see as she wants to talk to them about her father. The younger of the the teo polciemen arrives and she tells him that her father had nothing to do with the dath of her mother who had jumped fromt the balcony of their skyscraper home. She explains using pen and paper that she was the witbess to the death of her mother. The polcieman explains that he wants to talk her father about his rifle seen inthe same picture drmaed on the wall. When the policeman goes to depart the girl strips naked and offers herself to the policeman. He handles the situation well ina fatherly way and she gives him a note to read after he has left, As he leave the building eh encounters her father who confirms about the gun and polcie asks him to call at the officer in the morning to make a formal statement. He expresses sympathy for the loss of his wife throwing herself off the balcony. The father explaisn that his wife had shot herself and his daughter had been the first person to find her. She had not jumped from the balcony.
Back in the desert it is morning and the carer wakes too late to attract a passing boder patrol, Shje attempts to walk to safety with the children but the youngest girl who she carries begisn to ract to ehar, She finds shelter for them and leaves the two alone while she goes off for barely able to stand on her feet.
Returning to the Morocco, villagers have crated a compact stretcher to move the injured wife, as the coach party has driven on as some fo teh apssnergs become exhausted and ill with the heat and the absence of air conditioning because of the ened to conserve fuel, Several the passenegrs fearful of their own lives have wanetd to abndonet the woman and her husband. An American medical helicopter arrives the wife has rushed to surery where the doctor queries if he will be able to save life left alone her arm.
Sent in the wrong direction the police have reyruned to the former owner of teh rifle and accused gim of misleading them. The wife offers to show them where the family live. She spots the father and the two sons making their wescape across the mountains and the polcie stop and open fire when the trio fail to stop, The youngest son sies the weapon after his brother his show and opens fire hitting one officer. The Polcie fire back and the elder brother is hit again.
In the Texas/Californian desert the carer attracts rhe attention of the border patrol who do not listen to her pleras to get the children and take her tro the enarest police station for questioning and enquiries. The children are left alone in the midday sunshine.
In Morrocco the younger boy has through dowen the gun, raised his gands and pleads to the polcie to kill him and save his brother, He admits he ahd fired the shot. The police chief looks down at the child in disbelief and beleif that this is not act of terrorism but a tragedy the result of a child getting hold of a gun.
On Japan father finds his naked daughter on the balcony contemplating the ending of her life and she holds out a hand to him and he holders her,
The dead older brother is taken off the mountain.
The Mexican carer is offered voluntary deportation after living and working for fifteen years in the USA or worse if she insists on going to trial and returns to her birthland to be greeted by her nephew with the fate of her other relative unknown.
The would be terrorist incident has become world wide news, The woman survives and leaves hospital to join her family.
I have been a risk taker from becoming a teenager but I have also tried to understand he nature of the risk and the potential implications.
The Mexican woman deserved to be deported because she broke the first rule of caring for children she put her own interests above those of the children. She was very lucky not to have been prosecuted, irrespective of whether harm had come their way. I would lock up the relative who drove while drunk and then abandoned his relative and two very small children to the desert at night. Given according to the film this was not the first time. I would not let him out unless I could guarantee the safety of others which would mean a strictly supervised on licence regime. I also censure those at the party who allowed the children to be taken off by a drunk man.
The young Morrocan boy contributed to his own death, goading his younger brother, resentful that the boy constantly received paternal praise and showing no regard for the feelings and interests of others. Obviously his father carries the great responsibility and should be punished irrespective of the loss of one son because he gave the weapons to the children to use and provided them with no instruction about safety. The Child who shot the woman, in real life could have killed her or caused a major accident and will need custodial care until he has understood the seriousness of his behaviour and the authorities are satisfied that he is unlikely to do something similar again. Nor is the boy’s mother immune from criticism. OK so she is an uneducated peasant brought up to be the slave of male but she should not have allowed her sons to use weapons especially when not under the direct supervision of an adult. Those in the government of the country who did not give priority to the provision of education and the emancipation of women are also accountable.
The Japanese father may have felt he was foing his best but he ahd found himself with the responsibility of caring for the a teenmage girl who was also deaf. His first responsibility was to the welfare of his daughter and ensuring that she was properly supervised ina dn out of school and that she had substitute maternal education and guidance.
What on earth was Brad Pitt and his wife thinking off leaving their children with someone who clearly lacked trustworthyness and what was worse to go off toa country where terrorists acts had been committed. However when it comes to dealing with individuals in similar situations I would first take account that often the treatment is worse than cure and brutalising people caught in such situations and locking them away for any length of time without concentrating or reformation and rehabilitation is not just counter productive but also dangerous.
It was one the great films of that year 2006 and should stand the test of time. The film highlights the complexity of resolving conflicts between races cultures, religions and political structures added to which there is the problem of language. The film also brought out that all of us in every situation however insignificant approach matters from our historical viewpoints and experience and tend not to react according to just the circumstances unfolding before. We all need to stop blaming governments and others for the problems However the film is not entertainment and I have doubts about the effectiveness of such films among the unenlightened as they tend to reinforce the views and feelings of those who already have the knowledge and have attempted to put it into pratice.
I qwent to bed at 2pm and slept until just before 3 int ime to listen to the first half of Newcastle at Chelsea, But overcome wih tired I went back to bed at 4 and slpet thorugh untio after half past six. Stricly come dancing is becoming impossible abd everyone tries to recover from houding out John Seageant. Similarly the efforts of Simona nd Louis to fix the result is unacceptable, There have been six female vocalists of superior quality to the boy group and Mr Cowell‘s 15 year old young man. So far we have lost two superior females singers to the need for Louis and Simon to reian acts until the final if possible. The public audience is being fooled to an extent although this week they put the boys in sing off and the judges failed in the professional duty to put through the better singer giving the better performance. They almost admitted as much to their credit.
The unthinkable is happening as Arsene Wenger is losing his magic touch as the team lost badly to Manchestwer City who are still from being the finished article. Newcastle managed to hold out for a 0.0 draw at Chelsea which is no meanm feet.
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