Thread: Mexican Director calls US xenophobic!

US 'obsession' with force slammed by top Cannes director

May 23 1:53 PM US/Eastern

The United States has an "obsession" with power and is making mistakes in the way it pressures other countries to cooperate in its "war on terror", a leading Mexican director said at the Cannes film festival.

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu made the jabs during the presentation of his film, "Babel", which itself provides subtle criticism of the US.

"There is an obsession in the United States today... about, you know, showing the power but at the same time having the fear of the other," he said.

He claims that a sort of xenophobia has crept into US security policy in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks that targets not only Arabs and Muslims, but all foreigners -- including Mexican immigrants crossing the US border illegally.

"The border, what is happening, is terrible," he said. "The way they try to pretend that everybody is a terrorist."

Inarritu added that the problem was also being exported.

"The government of the United States is pressuring other countries to capture terrorists and sometimes they make big mistakes," he said.

"That is a very, very sad thing that is happening all around the world, using political pressure or econonomical pressure to make people act like that."


The themes of fearing people who are different and how miscommunication can cause difficult situations are central to his film, which contains three interwoven stories.

One concerns the internalised anguish of a mute girl in Japan, but the other two hold clues to Inarritu's perception of the US.

One of the two recounts the experience of a US couple, played by Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, who are victims of an irresponsible act by a small boy in the Moroccan desert that rapidly becomes a full-blown "terrorist act" in US reports.

The other, close to Inarritu's heart, is about a Mexican woman who comes up against the inflexibility and heartlessness of US authorities when she illegally crosses the US-Mexican border with the two children of her American employer.

The movie was so well received at its screenings Tuesday that critics counted it among the frontrunners for the Cannes festival's Palme d'Or award to be given out on Sunday.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/05/2 ... fktig.html

Anything touted by Cannes as exceptional work is usually ANTI-AMERICAN.

"There is an obsession in the United States today... about, you know, showing the power but at the same time having the fear of the other," he said.

Seems Mexico has an obsession about dumping a big percentage of their population here for some reason.

And why is it the heartless Americans when the female was BREAKING OUR LAW TO BEGIN WITH!!!!

These people just don't get it. And who is this Mexican director who's opinion we should care so much about??

Seems odd that the people and government in Mexico seem to doing everything in their power to keep their own people out of Mexico and in OURS...does that seem normal to everyone else?

That's another movie I won't go to see.

Originally Posted by WavTek

That's another movie I won't go to see.

If you want to see a movie it should be United 93. I rarely-if ever-go out to the movies, but that film was worth the ten dollar ticket.