AMORES PERROS W/O LANGUAGE

My wife and I watched “Amores Perros” this weekend, during her four day holiday weekend. Of course, being retired, all my weekends are now seven day weekends. The movie’s in Spanish, about dogs and people, struggling in the streets of Mexico to survive. A fascinating movie all the way around.

I first watched this film with English language subtitles as a commercial release back when it came through Spokane. The film my wife and I watched this weekend, I’d checked out from the library. Trouble was, it didn’t have English subtitles, even though the small type message at the bottom of the box informed us that, indeed, it would have English subtitles.

But my wife and I experienced an amazing thing. We watched the film all the way through, not understanding a word of it, yet we had an enjoyable experience. It had powers to rivet our attention even though we couldn’t understand a word of dialogue. Powerful scenes of violence and emotional content drew us in and held us spellbound.

I thought about silent films and could realize how much power a silent film could have on its audiences. I’ve seen “Wings” and “Nesferatu” (sp?) in the past and “Birth of a Nation” too. So I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that I could watch a film without language and be entertained by it, should I?


CELL PHONES?????????

I have contempt for cell phones and their presence at every ear and in far too many cars. I’ve witnessed more than one stupid driving act because someone had a cell phone stuck in her ear. Yet, last tuesday, the 23rd of November, 2004, a new observation compelled me to reevaluate my evaluation.

It was a cold, drizzly Autumn, almost Winter, day. Sunk in lethargy after a string of rainy days, I couldn’t get myself to read or to Blog or to make journal entries or to stir my bones at all. I sat in the downtown Starbuck’s, idly observing the passing of humanity with all it’s quirks and quivering. Nothing excited me. Then contemptuously, I noted a woman with a cell phone. Perhaps in her late 40s, early 50s, she was attractive to me in a dark way.

She made and received 5 to 8 calls in the space of 20 to 30 minutes. I overheard her tell one caller that she was stuck downtown for most of the day, she feared, and was glad she had her cell with her. At another point, someone called her, and she babbled out, “What’s going on? How are you?”

Then, for once, I didn’t have a repugnant thought about the cell phone because I realized that the woman was networking with friends. She was carrying around with her a personal community. In a little machine, she toted around a small town where she could go and visit over a cup of coffee and talk about her feelings and the happenings in her life which are important to her. So, I saw the cell phone as a tool for community even when someone is not “in community”.

Of course, the cell phone can be a tool of codependency too. In Codependents Anonymous meetings, we used to be able to say that you could judge the intensity of your enmeshment with your new mate by how long you waited by the phone for their phone call. Did you stay home from having fun just to wait for a phone call? Now you can carry the phone with you and still do other things.
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“Nothing makes you more tolerant of a neighbor’s noisy party than being there.” —Franklin P. Jones (Who?)