Babel
Alejandro González Iñárritu
USA
Nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Picture, Babel was given the prestigious Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival where it also premiered. The film structure of Babel consists of four separate but connected narratives that span across the globe. Along with two other films, Amores perros and 21 Grams, this is Iñárritu’s third and last pairing with screenwriter, Guillermo Arriaga. The three films share similar themes and structures to form what is referred to as their “Death Trilogy.” All three feature characters whose lives intersect around a traumatic event of some kind.
The title, Babel, derived from the Bible story of the Tower of Babel, is representative of the issues with language throughout the feature and it displays the obstacles that come with the inability to communicate through language. Of course, racial and political issues go hand-in-hand with these difficulties. Unlike a film like Crash, and other films with a sociological or humanitarian message to deliver where there seems to be a solution to work toward, this film presents a a problem which cannot be solved. There will always be difficulties or breakdowns in communicating that come from speaking different languages. This is an advantage the film has, as there are no clear cut answers throughout, and there is a lack of blunt social messages that could be construed as pushy propaganda from self-righteous filmmakers. In other words, you're not being hit over the head with anything here.
All four stories of Babel are particularly bleak and there is little relief from the tension that permeates throughout each person’s tragedies. Because there is so much happening in four different plots, the viewer does not get to know each character well, which is strange considering the star power attached to the film. Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett are big names and neither really get the attention they would in another film, although there are moments of beautiful tenderness between them. They play a husband and wife struggling to connect after one of their children dies from what appears to be Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS.) They go on a trip to Morocco to reconnect where Blanchett’s character is shot in a random act of senseless violence. Stranded in a remote town in a foreign land with a mortally wounded wife highlights a feeling of powerlessness and the frustrations that come from not being able to communicate effectively. This also gives Blanchett little to do but scream, cry and tremble as she probably has less than ten real speaking lines in the film. She does all of these things adequately enough though.
The shooters, two young sons of a peasant goatherd, were given a gun to scare away jackals from picking off their livestock. On impulse, they shoot at moving cars to test the gun's range. Their tragic story is filled with death and anger over the ignorance of two very young boys playing with a deadly high-powered weapon. While the boys portray sympathetic characters, it would have been more understanding to see Blanchett shot by the gun by accident, rather than having them deliberately aiming at a moving bus. The viewer can recognize they are supposed to appear as simple farmers but the scene lacks believability, and leads one to question whether anyone can be that simple.
Meanwhile, the two living children of Pitt and Blanchett are being watched by their Mexican nanny played by the wonderful Adriana Barraza. The nanny's plans to visit her son’s wedding in Mexico are thrown off by the shooting event in Morocco, so she decides to travel with her nephew (Gael García Bernal) and the two American children across the border. The return trip turns disastrous when they are stopped at the border with the two sleeping children in the backseat. Bernal’s part is small and inconsequential enough that an actor of lower-caliber could have played it just as easily, which is unfortunate after seeing him in great pictures like Y tu mamá también, Bad Education, The Motorcycle Diaries and even The Science of Sleep which appeared this same year.
While all four narratives of Babel are strong the one centered around deaf-mute teenager, Chieko, played by Rinko Kikuchi in Japan, rises above the rest. Her struggle to understand people in her own country and the frustrations with connecting with boys because of her disability are something that hasn’t been seen in the cinema enough or, possibly, at all. On top of this, she is also struggling to understand the suicide of her mother. Her acting through sign and body language creates a sympathetic and heartrendingly beautiful character. She was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for this film and it was a crime that she did not win.
The cinematography by Rodrigo Prieto is gorgeous and while the landscapes are often as bleak as the story, there is a fortunate ten minutes or so where there is cross-cutting between a picturesque wedding in Mexico with an evening out in a Japanese club that results in pure visual and aural sensuality. These scenes offer to take the film to a different place, but as the events end, everything comes crashing back down to a harsh reality. The editing style is interesting with events appearing out of chronological order, but since Pulp Fiction came out this technique has been used so often that it is almost cliché. All of the films in this trilogy use similar editing techniques, so this is the third time we have seen comparable structures by this team of creators.
Ultimately, while this is a competent film that is worth seeing, it is easier to recommend both Iñárritu’s Amores perros, which also stars Bernal, and then his 21 Grams. Both of these films explore equivalent themes, but seem to come together more smoothly. This might be because the characters interact more directly in those films. While every narrative in Babel is interesting and well executed, a more engaging film could have been made by focusing exclusively on the more unique story of the young deaf-mute in Japan. It would also center on a more specific problem rather than general language issues. The problems that come from speaking different languages in each story are too vague and unanswerable.
All four stories of Babel are particularly bleak and there is little relief from the tension that permeates throughout each person’s tragedies. Because there is so much happening in four different plots, the viewer does not get to know each character well, which is strange considering the star power attached to the film. Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett are big names and neither really get the attention they would in another film, although there are moments of beautiful tenderness between them. They play a husband and wife struggling to connect after one of their children dies from what appears to be Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS.) They go on a trip to Morocco to reconnect where Blanchett’s character is shot in a random act of senseless violence. Stranded in a remote town in a foreign land with a mortally wounded wife highlights a feeling of powerlessness and the frustrations that come from not being able to communicate effectively. This also gives Blanchett little to do but scream, cry and tremble as she probably has less than ten real speaking lines in the film. She does all of these things adequately enough though.
The shooters, two young sons of a peasant goatherd, were given a gun to scare away jackals from picking off their livestock. On impulse, they shoot at moving cars to test the gun's range. Their tragic story is filled with death and anger over the ignorance of two very young boys playing with a deadly high-powered weapon. While the boys portray sympathetic characters, it would have been more understanding to see Blanchett shot by the gun by accident, rather than having them deliberately aiming at a moving bus. The viewer can recognize they are supposed to appear as simple farmers but the scene lacks believability, and leads one to question whether anyone can be that simple.
Meanwhile, the two living children of Pitt and Blanchett are being watched by their Mexican nanny played by the wonderful Adriana Barraza. The nanny's plans to visit her son’s wedding in Mexico are thrown off by the shooting event in Morocco, so she decides to travel with her nephew (Gael García Bernal) and the two American children across the border. The return trip turns disastrous when they are stopped at the border with the two sleeping children in the backseat. Bernal’s part is small and inconsequential enough that an actor of lower-caliber could have played it just as easily, which is unfortunate after seeing him in great pictures like Y tu mamá también, Bad Education, The Motorcycle Diaries and even The Science of Sleep which appeared this same year.
While all four narratives of Babel are strong the one centered around deaf-mute teenager, Chieko, played by Rinko Kikuchi in Japan, rises above the rest. Her struggle to understand people in her own country and the frustrations with connecting with boys because of her disability are something that hasn’t been seen in the cinema enough or, possibly, at all. On top of this, she is also struggling to understand the suicide of her mother. Her acting through sign and body language creates a sympathetic and heartrendingly beautiful character. She was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for this film and it was a crime that she did not win.
The cinematography by Rodrigo Prieto is gorgeous and while the landscapes are often as bleak as the story, there is a fortunate ten minutes or so where there is cross-cutting between a picturesque wedding in Mexico with an evening out in a Japanese club that results in pure visual and aural sensuality. These scenes offer to take the film to a different place, but as the events end, everything comes crashing back down to a harsh reality. The editing style is interesting with events appearing out of chronological order, but since Pulp Fiction came out this technique has been used so often that it is almost cliché. All of the films in this trilogy use similar editing techniques, so this is the third time we have seen comparable structures by this team of creators.
Ultimately, while this is a competent film that is worth seeing, it is easier to recommend both Iñárritu’s Amores perros, which also stars Bernal, and then his 21 Grams. Both of these films explore equivalent themes, but seem to come together more smoothly. This might be because the characters interact more directly in those films. While every narrative in Babel is interesting and well executed, a more engaging film could have been made by focusing exclusively on the more unique story of the young deaf-mute in Japan. It would also center on a more specific problem rather than general language issues. The problems that come from speaking different languages in each story are too vague and unanswerable.
Rating: 6/10
-Ryan Sallows
Next time: A review of Best Picture-nominated comedy-drama Little Miss Sunshine.
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