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Film

Understanding 'Babel'

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu creates a coherent, moving film from a variety of languages, countries and plots.

By Steve Persall
Published November 9, 2006

Two boys in Morocco aim a rifle, firing shots that echo in the United States, Mexico and Japan. A married couple faces a deadly crisis that affects a widower and his deaf daughter, whom they will never meet. A housekeeper celebrates her son's wedding in one nation and soon grieves in another.

Welcome to Babel, population: the world.

The title of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's emotionally expansive film isn't a place. It's a state of minds.

In the Bible, Babel was where mortals attempted to build a tower to heaven. That angered God, who took away their common language and scattered them around the globe. Mankind couldn't conspire anymore but also couldn't easily communicate or find common ground.

We see where that has gotten us.

Babel focuses on a miniscule segment of humanity, yet still features seven languages, including the deaf daughter's signing. Even those who speak a common language don't always understand.

Babel doesn't offer answers to the problems of how to bring humanity together. At times it loses track of the questions as Inarritu's ambition outweighs his execution. The film frustrates as often as it fascinates.

Inarritu claims Babel finishes a trilogy begun with Amores Perros and 21 Grams, films that also wove separate stories linked by fate and fatalism. Those movies were tighter, with a melancholy elegance making them difficult to watch and to ignore.

Babel isn't as downbeat but it is equally sobering.

Inarritu and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga fashion four disparate dramas with at least one too many coincidences to make them seamless.

Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett offer the star power to draw viewers to such an esoteric project. However, these aren't star turns.

Pitt and Blanchett play Richard and Susan, an American couple vacationing in Morocco after a vague family tragedy. On a tour bus, a bullet rips into Susan's shoulder and medical assistance is nowhere to be found.

The gun was fired by Ahmed Said Tarchani, the son of a goat herder who bought the rifle to kill predatory jackals. The shot was a prank gone wrong, and in an era of terrorism, it gets worse.

Those who watch closely will easily connect Richard and Susan to events in San Diego where a Mexican nanny named Amelia (Adriana Barraza) seeks someone to babysit her charges so she can attend her son's wedding across the border. When no help is found, she loads the children into a car driven by her nephew (Gael Garcia Bernal) without permission or, as an illegal immigrant, any good sense.

Meanwhile, the film's most tangential thread runs through Japan where teenage Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi) attends a school for those who cannot speak or hear. Chieko is sexually precocious and resists all authority figures, especially her father (Koji Yakusho), after her mother's apparent suicide. Most of Babel passes before their links to Morocco and Mexico are clear, but these scenes, loaded with sensory impulses Chieko can't grasp, are worth an entire movie.

Inarritu's globe-trotting rhythms slightly diminish the powerful performances, especially by Pitt, Kikuchi and Barraza. The conceit isn't as jumbled as 21 Grams but that lessens the cumulative effect.

Still, Babel is an ambitious morality tale(s) that - despite the various languages and locales - makes a solid point that God's punishment didn't do us any favors.

Steve Persall can be reached at (727) 893-8365 or persall@sptimes.com.

REVIEW

Babel

Grade: B+

Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Cast: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Rinko Kikuchi, Koji Yakusho, Adriana Barraza, Gael Garcia Bernal, Said Tarchani, Boubker Ait El Caid, Mustapha Rachidi

Screenplay: Guillermo Arriaga

Rating: R; frontal nudity, strong profanity, brief violence and drug use, mature themes.

Running time: 142 min.

[Last modified November 8, 2006, 09:49:01]