Click on image to order
Starring: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett
Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu Rating
Amazon.com
Brilliantly conceived, superbly directed, and beautifully acted, Babel is
inarguably one of the best films of 2006. Director Alejandro González Iñárritu
and his co-writer, Guillermo Arriaga (the two also collaborated on Amores
Perros and 21 Grams) weave together the disparate strands of their
story into a finely hewn fabric by focusing on what appear to be several
equally incongruent characters: an American (Brad Pitt) touring Morocco with
his wife (Cate Blanchett) become the focus of an international incident also
involving a hardscrabble Moroccan farmer (Mustapha Rachidi) struggling to keep
his two young sons in line and his family together. A San Diego nanny (Adriana
Barraza), her employers absent, makes the disastrous decision to take their
kids with her to a wedding in Mexico. And a deaf-mute Japanese teen (the
extraordinary Rinko Kikuchi) deals with a relationship with her father (Koji
Yakusho) and the world in general that's been upended by the death of her
mother. It is perhaps not surprising, or particularly original, that a gun is
the device that ties these people together. Yet Babel isn't merely about
violence and its tragic consequences. It's about communication, and especially
the lack of it--both intercultural, raising issues like terrorism and
immigration, and intracultural, as basic as husbands talking to their wives and
parents understanding their children. Iñárritu's command of his medium, sound
and visual alike, is extraordinary; the camera work is by turns kinetic and
restrained, the music always well matched to the scenes, the editing deft but
not confusing, and the film (which clocks in at a lengthy 143 minutes) is
filled with indelible moments. Many of those moments are also pretty stark and
grim, and no will claim that all of this leads to a "happy" ending,
but there is a sense of reconciliation, perhaps even resolution. "If You
Want to be Understood... Listen," goes the tagline. And if you want a
movie that will leave you thinking, Babel is it. --Sam Graham
_________________________________________________
This film has SO MUCH going for it:
Great Direction.
Great Cinematography.
Splendid Realism--well, up to a point.
Fine, even extra-fine performances.
Brad Pitt--Mr. Time has been very kind to Mr. Brad.
Cate Blanchett, always a joy to see...
...AND, unfortunately, a script & scenario with some fatal flaws.
I don't need to detail the synopsis here, other than describe its failings.
First off, why in the name of hell would Western travelers (particularly Americans)
be on a bus tour of this god-forsaken area? And meanwhile, back in Mexico, was
it at all appropriate for the Nanny to take the gringo kids across the border
in order to attend a wedding while their parents were out of the country? Was
it likely that the bilingual Nanny and the Driver would suddenly become
blathering idiots when questioned by the obviously Hispanic Border Guard? And
was it really necessary to interject the Japanese sequence of a blossoming mute
girl who drops Ecstasy, flashes guys in restaurants & tries to seduce the
detective investigating her widowed father? AND what was the point of the
naked, sexually frustrated embrace of "Lotus Blossom" & her
Clueless Dad at the end of the picture? And, Jesus Christ, why show the live,
manual decapitation of a chicken for the Wedding Feast? I think most of us are
aware that this is a routine practice for poor people (that is, to actually get
their hands bloody from the food they eat), but how dare it be used in a minor
& unenlightened segment in a film? The incidence wasn't "faked."
It was hen exploitation, seriously. I deducted a star for that graphic example
of inhumanity.
It was cheap & totally unnecessary.
So how can I give this flick 3 stars?
Well, I think it's a good thing that the movie attempted to show the
international consequences of violence; and the very real reality that, while
others suffer brutally & needlessly, the world is expected to come to a
stop in order to cater to elitist Americans.
The scene of the Nanny desperately searching for the child she left alone in
the desert (sheer incompetence & neglect!) was visually stunning.
I can only hope the efforts in the pursuit of Truth & Justice was sincere
in Babel, but I have serious reservations.
Review: JEFarrow
Updated 03/08