نه، اینجا توی کلاس خالی دانشکده، وقتی که آن بیرون صدای حرف می­آید و صدای کشیدن صندلی­ها روی زمین، نمی­شود نوشت. خسته­ام، نه به خاطر روزهای پایان ترم، نه به خاطر کم خوابی و ترس از آینده... اصلا نمی­دانم از چه؛ شاید از اینکه لحظاتی هست که من هم می­خواهم ضعیف باشم... لعنت به این عادت­ها... دوست دارم ساعت­های بیکاری بین کلاس­ها را تنها در طبقه بالای همان کافه بنشینم اما... لعنت به ترک سیگار و هرچه مسئولیت است... اصلا لعنت به سلامتی و هر آنچه که برای سلامتی خوب یا بد است... لعنت به من، به خیابان ولی­عصر و این هوای ابری!

 The Girl in the Café is one of those movies that give you an idea about a betterworld. This movie shows how the governments pretend to care about the wrong things going on in the world such as poverty and AIDS but when it comes to making a move to change the situation, they simply tend to consider the interests of their own nations and countries rather than changing the wrong situation; They care about the statistics and numbers more than the real facts (This is shown slightly in Gina’s line saying that some pictures attached to the texts and numbers could show things better.); they can’t measure anything without the means of politics which is really nasty sometimes.

The movie pictures one of the G8 summits in which 8 countries, 8 men can change the world; can change the lives of many people and they don’t. They sit in luxury rooms wearing their best suits and dresses, eat luxury food and drink the most expensive drinks in world to decide about people starving. They spend lots of money to make a decision, which eventually they don’t. It’s just a show, everything is just a show for the leading powers of the world to pretend that they care, maybe just to calm the feeling of guilt that may bother them sometimes but soon will be forgotten.

The aim of basing the UN after the World War II was definitely something more important and more urgent than naming the years as the year of potato (as it’s named so in 2008). There is a growing number of governmental and non-governmental foundations and organizations supporting the human rights but the Africa is still starving. I’m not saying they don’t do anything; they have changed a lot of things but there are borders that yet haven’t been broken. Governments help as far as it doesn’t interfere with their billion- Dollar- Contracts; the president of France convicts the poor situation of human rights in China but doesn’t lose the chance of signing a very profitable contract with the Chinese Government. It should mean something. To me, it means that the “Human Rights” is just a means in their hands to play along. Something that was meant to help us build a better world is now part of their politics, which usually makes the world more unfair.

This is what I’ve always been thinking: We can change the world, it doesn’t matter how small or big the change will be. It’s just that we focus on the planning for the organization, calculating the numbers and analyzing the statistics and the legal process so much that we forget the aim itself. I know it all can’t be emotional but it’s not just emotion that leads us to see the world better, to see the facts more clear.

The movie is all about the dialogues and of course for me “the British accent”. However, I can’t deny the great influence made by the admiring acts of the leading actors: Bill Nighy and Kelly McDonald. Apart from the aspects considered to measure a good movie, I think it should be seen as something greater than just an “Emmy Awards Winning Movie”. It should give us, the people who are involved with these matters, an opinion to open more new windows to the idea of “Changing the World”.

To be fair and prevent neglecting the non-political aspects of the movie, I shall say that it also shows a very smooth humanity. One of the quotes, which can show it, quite very well is when Lawrence is in trouble because of the harsh words of Gina to the Officials and he has to ask her to leave. He goes like: “We have a pair of unfortunate situations here. A man who has nothing in his life except his work, that is unfortunate. And then by a stroke of bizarre chance, he finds someone who makes that not true for a day or two. But then, suddenly, it seems as though the price that has to be paid for that ray of light is some kind of... disgrace. It doesn't seem quite fair.”

And I think one of the highest moments of the movie is when the prime minister of the Untied Kingdom is trying to convince the other members of the G8 to approve the proposed package of fighting the poverty in Africa and the others don’t seem interested. The Chancellor of the Exchequer of Britain says: “Ladies and gentlemen, we're handing around new proposals. And remember, even if the Prime Minister and I are alone on this, we are not alone. Behind us stand the 30,000 children who will die of extreme poverty each day and we are proud to be their representatives. I didn't give my life to politics in order to say that I was part of a generation that succeeded in cutting the tariff on the import of processed coffee to 27.3%. I want to be a member of that great generation that for the first time had in its power to wipe out poverty, and did so. Are we alone in this? Or will someone else stand beside us?”

And at the end of the summit, the prime minister of Britain starts the final TV conference with these words: “Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s my responsibility and duty to report you the outcome of this summit. A Summit when I believe, we had the opportunity to change the world…” and the movie ends here: The summit could change the world but it didn’t.

And here comes the very last and most remembering thing from the movie: A quote by Nelson Mandela appears on the screen reminding us that a better world is possible and it’s up to us to want to make a change:

“Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great. You can be that great generation.”

PS: As you can see this server doesn't really serve well for the Latin formats and I'm tired of fixing every sentence!! You can read the fixed and non-messed version HERE.