Armed with a Winchester rifle, two Morrocan boys set out to look after their family's herd of goats. In the silent echoes of the desert, they decide to test the rifle… but the bullet goes farther than they thought it would. In an instant, the lives of four separate groups of strangers on three different continents collide. Caught up in the rising tide of an accident that escalates beyond anyone's control are a vacationing American couple, a rebellious deaf Japanese teenager and her father, and a Mexican nanny who, without permission, takes two American children across the border. None of these strangers will ever meet; in spite of the sudden, unlikely connection between them, they will all remain isolated due to their own inability to communicate meaningfully with anyone around them.
BABEL is the crowning achievement in the trilogy from the unstoppable creative pairing of screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga and director Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu, which also includes AMORES PERROS (2000) and 21 GRAMS (2003). Building upon its predecessors’ method of weaving together disparate storylines, BABEL reaches new heights of ambition with a tale that, in the absence of traditional narrative and protagonist, relies on numerous incredible performances to evoke an affecting relevance by framing contemporary issues in very human struggles and mistakes. Richard and Susan (Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett) are a wealthy couple from San Diego who are vacationing in Morocco in order to heal after the death of their young child; their other two children are at home with their Mexican maid, Amelia (Adriana Barraza). In a complex shift of ownership to which the audience is privy, a rifle finds its way into the hands of a local herdsman’s young sons (Said Tarchani and Boubker Ait El Caid), who recklessly take a shot at a tour bus and catch Susan in the shoulder, causing her to nearly lose her life. The distraught Richard calls home to tell Amelia of the situation, who promptly departs for Mexico to attend her child’s wedding, with Richard and Susan’s children in tow. Disaster thus multiplies, with the situation in Morocco ascribed to terrorists in the media, while Amelia meets with the harsh immigration policies of the Bush administration. Meanwhile, in Tokyo, a widower (Koji Yakusho) tied to the rifle in question attempts to deal with his memories and his raucous, promiscuous, deaf daughter (Rinko Kikuchi).
Nearly every performance of the film is devastating, offering an intimate, emotional experience that would approach melodrama if it weren’t rendered so realistically. Cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto’s color palette masterfully captures the muted tones of the harsh natural landscapes of Morocco and the Mexican border, as well as the fluorescent lights of Tokyo that denote another, though equally barren, end of the spectrum. The misunderstandings born of cultural, language, and class barriers are on par with those that occur between family members, depicting a world that, while connected in the least expected of ways, is also faced with a deep-seated crisis that threatens to alienate humanity from itself.
(32 votes)
3.
In the remote sands of the Moroccan desert, a rifle shot rings out – detonating a chain of events that will link an American tourist couple's frantic struggle to survive, two Moroccan boys involved in an accidental crime, a nanny illegally crossing into Mexico with two American children and a Japanese teen rebel whose father is sought by the police in Tokyo. Separated by clashing cultures and sprawling distances, each of these four disparate groups of people are nevertheless hurtling towards a shared destiny of isolation and grief.
In the course of just a few days, they will each face the dizzying sensation of becoming profoundly lost – lost in the desert, lost to the world, lost to themselves – as they are pushed to the farthest edges of confusion and fear as well as to the very depths of connection and love.
In this mesmerizing and emotional film, acclaimed director Alejandro González Inarritu (21 Grams, Amores Perros) achieves a range never before seen in his films, in which by making himself invisible, he penetrates the different cultures, shot in three continents, directing actors and non-actors in four languages and making the hyper-realistic world co-habitate with the vision of the world of the imaginary, where sound and music are the emotional narrators. This film brings back the ancient concept of BABEL and questions its modern day implications: the mistaken identities, misunderstandings and missed chances for communication that, though often unseen, drive our modern lives. Babel explores the nature of the barriers and misunderstandings that seem to separate mankind.
Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Gael Garcia Bernal, and Kôji Yakusho lead an international ensemble of actors and non-professional actors from Morocco, Tijuana and Tokyo, who enrich Babel's take on cultural diversity and enhance its powerful remarks on cultural links and frontiers.
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