Of introverts, intellect and talking...

The Quiet Girl (An Cailín Ciúin, Irish: 2022)
Written and Directed: Colm Bairéad

My sisters and I were brought up to believe that only empty vessels make a lot of noise. Through Aesop's fables, we were told to keep our mouths shut. The story of three good friends, a tortoise and two wild geese, comes to mind. In the tale, the three friends planned a guided flight away from their habitat, a drying-up pond. The problem was that the tortoise could not fly. So the geese held either end of a long stick, and the tortoise bit the middle portion with its mouth with strict instructions never to open its mouth when they were cruising at a high altitude. And that is precisely what the tortoise did, opening its gap to praise the beauty of a 'bird's eyes view' of Earth. The end could have been more pleasant.

Children were expected to be seen and admired afar but not heard. But no says techniques of modern parenting. Children are encouraged to express their feelings. They advocate a Socratic type of learning, not to be fed with knowledge but to seek them instead. They participate in familial decision-making, perhaps visiting a gynaecologist's practice too. 

Now I also have learned that more intelligent people are less talkative. Since their basal arousal to know is high, they are said to constantly learn from the stimuli around them. Further stimulation in the form of incessant banter, overwhelming extrovert interactions and music may be offputting. Hence, many recoil into their introvert's cocoon. Arthur Schopenhauer posited that a high intellect tends to make a man unsocial'. That says little about lawyers, businessmen and politicians who source their potential clients mainly through social interactions and social functions. Persuasion via vocalisation forms a crucial crux of their reason for existence.

This Irish nomination to the Oscars is a poignant coming-of-age drama of a 9-year-old girl, Cáit, who grows up in an impoverished family. Day-to-day living is hard with a lazy unemployed father with hardly any money to go around to feed too many mouths. To top it up, her mother is pregnant with her fifth pregnancy. Obviously, there is hardly any love to go around. Cáit is sent off to spend her summer with a distant middle-aged relative to ease the burden of caring for another child. 

Cáit, the quiet girl, is received well by the middle-aged couple who themselves had lost their young child earlier. After a frosty start, Cáit becomes close to them. For the first time, she finds the love of a family and the comfort and security of a home. Then it is time to return...

An engaging movie with superb acting and retro cinematography, sending viewers back in time to 1981 Ireland. Recommended, 4.5/5.

(PS. Somebody once told me that every word we utter reverberates in the Universe forever. Like the flutter of a butterfly and the start of a typhoon, the sound waves emitted from our vocal cords definitely affect the course of Earth and the things around us. Just because we all have a mouth each, it is no excuse to yak and yak for no reason. Talk only when needed. No more and no less.)

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Away with human interaction?

Jexi (2019)
Director: Jon Lucas, Scott Moore

There is nothing groundbreaking about this movie. It reminds me of at least two films which dealt with the same theme. In 1984 'Electric Dreams', a desktop computer, Edgar, falls in love with the protagonist's crush. After successfully wooing his beau with the help of his computer, his life turns into a living hell. His computer controls most of his home devices and goes hyperdrive to sabotage the protagonist's work and love life. In 2013 'Her', the protagonist falls in love with an Operating System, AI.

All three films show us how hooked we are to our digital devices. We avoid human interaction and feel most comfortable left to our devices. Furthermore, interaction with the same kind becomes increasingly more difficult. Even though we were told that we are social animals who thrive on human dealings, somehow, it becomes more and more an uphill battle. People demand. They want to be treated special. They demand the right not to be offended. We need to be politically correct when addressing them. The power dynamics put them in such a place that they can get away with murder. 

They say the customer is always right, so they demand their rights to be served as if the servant has no rights. There is no such thing as implied consent. It seems like everything has to be written, signed and glazed with a seal of legal approval.

As human interaction becomes increasingly laborious, many find solace in the company of sologamy and interactive digital devices. It can be switched off at will and does not leave a substantial legal bill. Maybe not. Our digital footprints stay in the cloud forever, waiting to be picked up and used against us when the time is ripe. If you do not believe me, ask Rashmi Samant, who won the Oxford Union Presidentship in 2020. She was cyberbullied and forced to resign after her past internet entries of years previously alleging racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, you name it!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.