Netflix has been my source of TV entertainment for the past six months or so. I disconnected my cable television service, planning to cut down on my bills. With Netflix, Roku, high speed internet and basic channels I get over the air, I don't really miss cable to be honest. I'm not much of a sports fan and whatever major games I need to watch to be able to understand just what the hell people are talking about, I get them over the air just fine.
One of the movies I had put in my Netfilx DVD queue was "Babel." Babel is a heart wrenching but well made movie. The story of a family of Jones in San Diego interlocks with the stories of Amelia, an illegal Mexican immigrant who has been living in the US for the past 16 years and is taking care of the Jones' kids, and a Moroccan family, whose youngest son shoots at a tourist bus and incidentally at Mrs. Jones with a rifle his father acquired for him to keep the jackals away while herding sheep. The movie also presents a story of a Japanese dad whose rifle was used in the shooting and his depressed and deaf daughter whose mother had committed suicide. Babel shows the interconnectedness of today's world and this side of the story have been discussed well in most of the reviews. Though most reviews talk about how the families are alike all around, I think that the movie presents well the differences in lives between the well off families in the US and Japan and financially struggling families in Mexico and Morocco. It also knowingly or unknowingly shows how people in authority treat and react differently to well-to-do families and poor families. The world will definitely be a better place if authority figures keep open ears and non-judgemental mind while dealing with people from economically, geographically, and ethnically diverse backgrounds.
