Home > Blogs > Sir Critic on Cinema > Archives > 2006 > November > 10 > Entry
Babel: Hard to love, easy to praise
I cannot claim to “love” “Babel.” As moving as it often is, I can’t say I’m anxious to see it again soon.
Yet it’s also wrong to say that I “admire” “Babel.” After the film, I felt so shaken that to “admire” it would be to do it a disservice. Saying I “respect” it isn’t much better.
Perhaps the best compliment I can pay the film is to say that I understood it.
It’s not much of a pull quote, I know. You’re not going to see “I understood ‘Babel’ - Eric Robinette, Middletown Journal” on the movie’s posters anytime soon. Yet empathy is the very key to this powerful film by the makers of “Amores Perros” and “21 Grams.”
Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and writer Guillermo Arriaga specialize in movies that tell a series of stories that are interconnected. Much more often than not, the characters are struggling with tragedies of one kind or another, divided by borders or other boundaries, but united in misery. “Babel” is no exception, but it jumbles the storylines and timelines less than the duo’s earlier films.
“Babel” tells four stories about people who are cut off from the world in various ways: A) Two boys trying to see how far their rifle will shoot accidentally wound an American tourist (Cate Blanchett) and try to elude capture by the authorities. B) The tourist’s frantic husband (Brad Pitt) struggles to treat his wife in a remote African village, where help is hard to come by because the American embassy believes the shooting is an act of terrorism. C) A family takes two American children across the border to attend a wedding in Mexico, but the occasion turns disastrous. D) A deaf-mute Japanese teenager (Rinko Kikuchi) who cannot cope with the death of her mother resorts to acting out with shocking sexual aggressiveness.
Given that description, it’s fair to say that people who expect to see an intense international thriller with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett front and center are in for a harsh surprise. Even for people with strong stomachs, much of “Babel” is painful and even sometimes punishing to watch. The crowd that goes to the movies “just to be entertained” probably won’t latch on to it.
Even some critics have not warmed up to the film, complaining that the gambit of interconnecting the stories has gotten tiresome. In a sense, I agree in that it does sometimes seem pretentiously showy. However, I found that by straightening out “Babel’s” structure in my head, thinking of it as an omnibus film, and then connecting the dots, I digested “Babel” more easily.
The strongest episodes belong to Pitt and Kikuchi because of their excellent performances. Pitt has never been better, dropping his movie star aura to let it all hang out emotionally, and it’s startling to see him lose all his reserves as his wife’s condition deteriorates. Kikuchi is nothing short of heartbreaking; her performance is the highlight of the film as she desperately tries to find some kind of human connection. Inarritu makes her scenes even more powerful by occasionally muting the soundtrack, so we understand what it’s like to live in her silent world.
The Mexico stroyline makes its mark with a wrenching performance by Adriana Barraza as the nanny who tries to protect the children. However, this part of the story takes too long to deliver its punch. I would have trimmed it back and devoted more time to the story with the two boys, who needed more screen time to give their story the most impact.
Although overlength mars “Babel” slightly, the film made me understand how all of these different stories lead to the same destination. More than anything else, “Babel” is about our universal inability or unwillingness to listen to each other. That’s why “Babel” is not only worth seeing - it’s worth hearing.
GRADE: A-
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Reviews
Comments
By Allie D.
November 14, 2006 12:47 PM | Link to this
I think I will defintiely be checking this out. I remember feeling totally KOed after seeing 21 Grams…