Cinema the answer to Babel

By Freddy Cheung

In the Old Testament, in the long-forgotten city of Babel, the ancients tried to build a tower high enough to reach God. And since the God of the Old Testament was not one who desired celestial competition, he cursed us with a multitude of languages. Condemning us to millennia of misunderstanding and an inability to fully connect with each other.

Cinematic language has the power to transcend the limitations of the spoken word. An image filled with symbols and saturated with emotion can speak to the soul of a viewer regardless of where they are from. Storytelling and therefore cinema, have always been mirrors to our inner soul. Revealing our deepest fears, desires, and our longing for connection through the most ancient of human abilities, our imagination. Our imagination is the universal language that cinema uses to transcend the curse of the Tower of Babel.

Below are images from the films of Wong Kar-wai that transcend language, culture, and ideology: