Review of Babel (2006) by Manny C — 12 Jan 2011

In the Bible, one famous tale has God becoming very angry when man attempts to reach Heaven by building a tower, called Babel. In order to put a halt to the work, he devised different languages that made communication and comprehension impossible. Thus the word babel came to mean noise and nonsense.

The more things change, the more they stay the same, and the uber-gifted Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarittu and his remarkable screenwriting collaborator Guillermo Arriagaâ"completing a trilogy that began with Amores Perros and continued with 21 Gramsâ"masterfully applied the concept of babel to the here and now: a world under threat of terrorism, domestic and abroad, and divided by race, language, culture, religion and money. Sound heavy? Only if you arenâ(TM)t into seeing something absolutely extraordinary and shattering. Nearly five years later Babel is still one of the richest and most emotionally stirring film of the past ten years, an invitation for audiences to breach the babble and noise of our modern times, and begin really communicating with one another.

Inarrituâ(TM)s film throws us right into the lives of broken individuals and families, from the poor streets of Morocco, to Tokyo, to middle-class San Diego to Mexico. Babel, like its namesake word, is a cacophony of dialects and languages, including sign language. It also boasts a fractured timeframe and parallel stories to add to the disorientation, but pay close attention.

Then there are his actors, who work miracles, large and small, guiding us through Inarittuâ(TM)s global maze. Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett are San Diego couple Richard and Susan, in Morocco attempting to cope with the loss of a child. Their other two children are home with the maid, Amelia (a haunting and brillint Adriana Barraza), who defies Richard by taking the kids to Mexico with her ill-tempered nephew (Gael Garcia Bernal) for a wedding.

The game-changing event occurs when Susan is shot in the shoulder while on a bus tour. The bullet comes from a hunting rifle, fired by the son of a goat-herder, doing target practice. Susan is bleeding and near death, and stranded in a remote village, as Richard attempts to call for help. The shooting makes international headlines, and is predictably hyped into a terrorist incident. The impact of that shooting goes all the way to Tokyo, to the Japanese man who sold the gun to the goat-herder. Heâ(TM)s also trying to cope with the suicide of his wife, and the emotional implosion of his deaf-mute daughter Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi, the filmâ(TM)s most devastating character), drifting into sexual promiscuity.

To this day however, no review or essay can really do justice to this film. Itâ(TM)s a remarkably integrated picture of a world in fear, in crisis and in denial. Pitt has never been more emotionally wired, bruised and raw. Itâ(TM)s his most moving performance on screen ever. Barraza will leave you hollow, simply with searing images (captured beautifully by Rodrigo Prietoâ(TM)s ace cinematography) of her stranded at the Mexican border, wandering the desert for aid. Kikuchi is the most unforgettable, whether wandering a Tokyo disco, where the sound literally goes silent so that we only hear what she hears, or standing naked on a high-rise over a bustling, uncaring city. She nailed every nuance and soul-shattering detail. But really, all of Babel has this effect. To this day, it till speaks to our shattered world marred by terrorism and fear. Itâ(TM)s still impossible to shake.