Last night I swept my mother away from a home filled with four children under the age of four, and took to her to a movie. It's Mother's Day weekend, and I told her and my brothers, Grandma needs a break. What movie did we see? Babies. Five minutes in I realized the mistake I made. I took her from a house of cries and messes, to a movie of the same, accept we didn't know these kids. But after another five minutes we settled down to the idea that yes, we were watching babies be babies and actually enjoyed it. Or, at least I did, and I hope she did since, you know, she was the reason we went out.
Four babies in the first year of their lives in four different places in the world: San Francisco, Tokyo, Mongolia, and Namibia. Yes, we saw babies, but we also saw four extremely different cultures, and saw four different ideas about child rearing and family. I fell in love with happy little Bayar and his family's ranch and yurt in Mongolia. It was like a strange little place filled with anachronisms and contradictions. In one scene we saw the men race in a dust of smoke on their horses through a barren land, and in the next we heard a cell phone ring. We saw Bayar crawl on a dirt floor and have his bath water slurped up by a goat, and yet just outside a giant satellite stands guard, and the father rides a motorcycle. Yes, there is something charming about Mongolia, about their strong sense of tradition coupled with their use of modern technology. How does it all work together?
And then there is Namibia, a place where a baby receives a haircut with a knife, and a bath with a mothers tongue. I didn't even know places like Namibia still existed. The scenes of modern Tokyo made for a wonderful juxtaposition to the deserts of Namibia, and the wider angles of buildings, elevators, window views were probably some of my more favorite moments. The film maker's view of San Francisco, unfortunately, was disappointing and cliche, but all in all, I enjoyed this quiet view of life at the very beginning.
