BABEL

Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (21 Grams, Amores Perros)
Starring: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Rinko Kikuchi, Adriana Barraza

Babel is the first of the 'made-for-Oscar-consideration' films of 2006. This study (for lack of a better word) of how we fail to communicate with each other has every mark of a film slotted from its inception as Oscar material. The story is 'sweeping' and the plot construction 'complex', relatively speaking. Three (virtually) separate stories about miscommunication are interspersed, one follows a terrorist shooting in Morocco, another an illegal Mexican nanny and her, uh, travails with her wards, and what I think was probably the most interesting, the story of a deaf-mute teenage girl in Tokyo. Each had something to say about how we fail to communicate with each other, and the problems that can cause. You get it, right? Babel? As in Tower of Babel? Yeah, duh.

The first story follows Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett as tourists (more or less) in Morocco, who seem to be struggling through their own relationship issues, although this is no more than hinted at. A young boy is given a gun by his father to keep jackals from poaching their goat herd. He shoots at the tourist bus for no good reason, or because he's a young boy, and not well educated on guns, I guess. The world believes this to be a terrorist attack. The boys are pursued by police. Cate and Brad struggle to stay alive.

The second (and I thought the silliest) of the stories, follows the children of Brad and Cate, taken care of by a Mexican illegal. The old woman's son is getting married in Mexico, and she is forced to take the two children to the wedding for lack of anything better to do with them. All three are then suddenly, and strangely put in a terrifying life-or-death situation which I won't give away.

Even though I didn't like the death defying sequence at the end of this story, I very much did like how it showed the differences in the cultures. I thought the portrayal of the Mexican wedding was quite true, and quite good. Gael Garcia Bernal was excellent here in a small supporting role.

The final story, which I thought had the most potential, followed a deaf-mute teenager in Tokyo. This young girl has lost her mother to suicide, and though her workaholic father is certainly well-meaning, she is virtually cut off from human contact (and communication). She must write simple messages on note paper to be understood. Unable to scream with her voice, she lashes out sexually, desperate for human connection. She is rejected time and again, until she feels she can take no more.

I liked all of these stories. In fact, they each had aspects to them which I very much liked. Unfortunately, they each had aspects which I didn't. I liked the glimpse into Moroccon peasant society. I believed that the situation presented in Morocco could have happened. This miscommunication could certainly happen. I don't believe that this miscommunication is at the heart of the troubles in the Middle East, though. It's quite a bit wider and deeper a chasm than simply not understanding each other's viewpoint.

I also liked the glimpse into the life of an illegal alien, these characters deserve to have more stories told about them than one part of one movie, that's for sure. I did not like the disaster that occurred in this story branch, however.

In the most obvious tale of miscommunication, I very much liked the ideas behind the story of the Japanese girl. Here, I did not like its execution. I absolutely did not believe what happened in this story - parts just felt false to me. As a side note I also absolutely hated the blatant rip-off of Lost in Translation in this story. At the end of her story, the young girl gives a note that we never see, and are left guessing about to the man who has helped her. Yes it may be slightly different than Scarlett Johnannson's unheard whisper to Bill Murray in Translation, but it was close enough to annoy me.

So, in the end, I think we have a film that tried for "powerful". I don't believe it quite made it there, but it probably only missed by a hair's breadth. It was a fine film. Although it was longish, and generally slow-paced, Babel was never dull. Although I've heard many describe the film's construction as complex and hard to follow, no one I know agreed with that. We all followed the film perfectly throughout. Although I don't necessarily agree with every thematic item in the movie, I certainly learned something from this film. Although I didn't like every plot point, or character in the film, much still felt perfectly "real" and touched me deeply. This was a fine picture, but it probably didn't reach quite as high as the filmmakers might have hoped. There's enough going on in this movie for me to like some bits and dislike others. That right there means there's much more happening in this film than in most movies. It will probably be why some don't like the film, however.

In some ways this film is similar to Crash, last year's best picture winner. This film was better than Crash in nearly every way. It's smarter. It's also much sadder. It's a sad, sad situation after all, this inability to understand each other.

Standouts: Much of the direction, story, theme and characters. It's complexity.
Blowouts: Other specific aspects of the direction, story, theme and characters.

Grade: A-