Babel

I loved "Amores Perros" It was revolutionary in so many ways and smelled like the real thing even if I couldn't quite put my finger as to what the real thing really was. "21 Grams" had gigantic intentions and superb performances but didn't feel quite revolutionary because we had kind of seen it before - and better - in "Amores Perros". Now "Babel" and, my goodness, the first thing that comes to mind is, what an extraordinary filmmaker Inarritu really is. I suspect that his universe, even if it feels infinite, it is framed - beautifully so - between the walls of biblical references. His methods may be way ahead of the times but the roots are as ancestral as fire itself. I'm not sure where I want to go with all this but the question is, Inarritu is taking me places and that's what I long for in a filmmaker. He's not taking any of us for granted and I'm very grateful for that. His movies are experiences and I for one can't wait for the next one.

If you – like me, and so many others – found 'Crash' (2005) offensively finger-wagging and dumb (its inherent message was: "Racism is bad."), Alejandro González Iñárritu's Babel will make it up to you with refreshing intelligence, respect for cultures and crisp acting. The plot outline is difficult to do justice in one sentence but much like Crash it explores culture clashes in life by navigating multiple interweaving story lines.

One of these is the story of the married couple Richard and Susan Jones, played by Pitt and Blanchett, who travel to Morocco 'to get away'. Theirs is a remarkably complex and bruised marriage at first but once the plot gradually unfolds the root of their problems becomes apparent. What is most remarkable about their storyline is that Brad Pitt actually emotes as an actor (although is he is grossly facilitated by heartfelt circumstances) and that Cate Blanchett regrettably never gets the chance to shine in her performance.

Cut to two young Arabic boys in the barren craggy hills of the outback of Morocco. They are brothers whom have just been given a rifle by their father to protect their goats and now they are having fun in learning how to fire the weapon. There is refreshing gritty honesty in the portrayal of this storyline – from the dirt and heat on their clothes to the realistic dialogue – and many heartrending moments due to the aforementioned. But be warned, this is no glossy or romantic depiction of North Africa...

Another storyline takes place in colourful Tokyo in Japan, detailing the teenage life of a deaf girl called Chieko. Hers is arguably the most compelling story especially in terms of sheer fun to be had. Being a teenage girl is hard enough and Chieko finds that her disability distances her from other people – the boys she is interested in looks at her like she is a monster – and frustrated and desperate to be loved, she indulges in teenage clichés like partying and drinking in the modern mess that is Tokyo. Here I found the single most vivid disco sequence completely sucking me in and not letting go until the fast-paced euphoria of Chieko finally subsided. There is absolute gold to be found in this Tokyo story.

Finally, the last storyline takes place in Mexico and the main character is a woman called Amelia (Adriana Barraza), who also happens to be Richard and Susan's nanny. When her son is getting married in Mexico and she cannot get a day off, she takes the kids with her across the border. Big mistake. I'm sure many will be able to identify with the sprawling surge of Mexican culture at the wedding and indeed the music and pace made this storyline both beautiful and enjoyable to follow. It is evident that director Alejandro González Iñárritu feels most at home in this setting and as a result, the story shines and its characters emote.

Although there is a lot to keep track of in 'Babel' owing to its many story lines, there is such a fluent and seamless intercutting of these segments that it is impossible not to be entranced in the entirety of the film. There is a wealth of juxtapositions of culture to be found and much fun and visual stimulation to be had because of it. From the dramatic barren landscapes of Morocco to the fast-paced teen world of Tokyo, Babel treats contrast with remarkable sensitivity and skill of the subject matter. In other words, it gives a nonsentimental yet compassionate insight into the lives of different people whose stories orbit around the kaleidoscope that is 'Babel', sewn together by unsparing and uninhibited performances.

Better yet, you get so caught up in each story that when it cuts to make room for the next you feel almost a little offended – and that is good film-making. Babel, given its content, is everything Crash was not. Finally, it offers a satisfying and humble conclusion to an otherwise epic film. Although I cannot help but remark, Iñárritu, come on – you could have made a good movie in less than 2½ hours... *hmph*

8 out of 10

Alejandro González Iñárritu's two previous films, Amores Perros and 21 Grams, dealt with the subject of very different people being connected on a small scale. Babel takes a different approach, but has the same central theme. The plot follows four different stories that stretch the entire globe (Morocco, Japan, Mexico and a few minutes in America) and shows how one single bullet can effect the lives of people so far apart. Guillermo Arriaga's script is breathtaking and perfectly structures this vast array of characters. Within minutes of being with them, we know exactly who they are and what drives their current personality. This gives time for the epic story to play out.

It's all centered around two young boys who are fooling around with a rifle and accidentally shoot American tourist Susan (Cate Blanchett) who is on "vacation" with her husband Richard (Brad Pitt). Though never directly saying it, it's quite clear that one of their son's died and Richard panicked and left his family behind; leaving Susan to care for their two remaining children. He came back and their vacation to Morocco was really just an excuse for them to get away and try to get their marriage back together. Ultimately it does bring them back to each other, but it takes tragedy to do so. Brad Pitt's performance is one of the finest of 2006 and his internal pain and emotional strength manage to bring a river of tears flowing from my eyes. It's his best performance since Twelve Monkeys and further proves that through all of the controversy of his social life, he's still a phenomenal actor. Back in America, their nanny Amelia (Adriana Barraza) is taking care of their two children while they are gone. Through unfortunate circumstances she has to bring them to Mexico for her son's wedding and things take a huge turn for the worse when they try to cross back over into America.The final story is a much further departure from the rest of the characters. It centers around a deaf-mute Japanese schoolgirl named Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi) who struggles with the pain of being so different from everyone else along with her mother's apparent suicide and the police's attempt at questioning her father about a gun he gave to a Moroccan man (the gun used to shoot Susan).

While most people believe that the film is about how people living so close to each other can be so different, I actually feel that it's the exact opposite. I think it's a story of how people so far apart (on different continents, speaking different languages) are almost exactly alike. All of the stories center around similar themes; loneliness, alienation, depression, the loss of a loved one and more while Arriaga never forgets to subtly mention the political outrage that comes from an American woman being shot in a foreign country. Every character feels the same emotions, deals with similar pain and are all connected by this single shooting. Babel starts off as a film about very different people in very different worlds, but ends up being one studying human nature and showing that even when we're worlds apart people we can still be so similar. All you have to do is listen.

Alejandro González Iñárritu's direction is brilliantly layered and intricately woven. He deftly uses different film stock, imagery, sound, and stories to weave a single tale out of four disparate ones, a talent he's shown in other films.

The story by screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga and Iñárritu has one incident ricochet around the globe, and peeling back the layers of culture to show the frustrating inability to communicate, and the poignancy and universality of familial love.

Each story is complete, but a series of snapshots that leave as many questions as answers. As the stories unfold, the backstories and the futures of the characters are chock full of possibility and pain. As one commenter during the Q&A said, it was frustratingly beautiful. Each storyline deals with family and conflict from the inability to communicate or to understand.

All the performances are incredible, and very touching. Brad Pitt did an excellent job, and the always outstanding Cate Blanchett, a powerhouse actor if there ever was one, has the least screen time of any of the leads. Few can do so much with so little. But the really outstanding performance is Rinko Kikuchi as a deaf-mute Tokyo teen.

To say any more would possibly lesson the experience, so let me just say this: it may seem confusing at times, but by the end, it will seem like poetry.

There's something unique to film, something relatively new in the word that has had profound effect on how we relate to art.

I call it noir, and define it a bit differently than the ordinary fellow, who thinks it has something to do with dark shadows and unhappy endings.

For me, noir is centered on the idea that the camera represents our eyes; that the nature of the world we see is bent by us watching it; and that the fate of the characters in that world are arranged — sometimes by extreme coincidence — for our purposes. The extreme photography is an indicator of that eye, and not necessarily a characteristic of noir. The camera might not be cinematically introduced, though of course it usually is.

I'm interested in the evolution of noir because its right at the edge of how we construct narrative, how we experiment with ideas and the stories we swim in. But what does a filmmaker do if that edge is always moving? Nearly every film I see that was made recently has some twist on the exploration — this is how genres mature today, and how we build tools to see ourselves.

For some reason, its the Spanish-speaking filmmakers that are doing the most interesting work in pushing this further, and effectively.

What Iñárritu does is especially adventurous. I particularly appreciate it because instead of rattling around in established cinematic conventions, he's trying to extend to new ones. Well, not precisely new, but newly recast. I like his idea of narrative braiding, but that's only part of his adventure on the edge. Its what he leaves out that matters. The absences aren't noticed because of the way things are sliced and respliced. And people think the story is important, which of course it isn't, just a pointer: here generally misinterpreted as miscommunication. Deliberately so, I think.

Those elided parts mean that we fill in more of the story than usual, that the container of a long form film can be bigger than usual. That it presents an open world. What's new for Iñárritu is the notion of referring to large sweeps of society as metaphors; and also new is the idea of lacing watchers in the story, here a disembodied global TeeVee audience. They "watch" but of course see almost nothing of what we see.

Its about listening transformed into watching; each of the three threads involves watching. The Japanese episode of course literally has watching as listening and the lasting trauma of what has been seen. The Morrocan episode is triggered by a boy spying on his nude, colluding sister, and on the Brad Pitt side about a reluctant busload of watchers. The Mexican story has a woman going to see her son's wedding and having trouble with being seen clumsily.

Sight. Made explicit of course by the cinematic flourishes, the deliberate differences in the three camera stances, whose differences penetrate to primitives beyond grain, light, stance to the soul of the eye. Its as if Iñárritu decided to create three of the most elementary braids of sight he possibly could with the notion that their cleanliness would allow them to braid into a larger container than any other film.

Its one of the most exciting things happening. Almost thankfully he underused Cate, who is one of the few actresses who could hint that everything other than her we see is in her mind. Almost thankfully he underplays the merger into one soul of three wonderful actresses.

Almost, but not quite thankfully, he only hints at the notion of detective work, three types of discovery.

Its delicate, good, rich, dangerous without seeming so.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.