← Back to Reviews
in
Babel (2006 - Alejandro González Iñárritu)
Alejandro González Iñárritu and Guillermo Arriaga, the director and screenwriter who teamed for Amores Perros (2000) and 21 Grams (2003), come together again for a fractured multiple character tale of suffering and human frailty. There are four main story tracks within the narrative set in Morocco, Mexico and Tokyo, and where they overlap puts a spotlight on some of the artificial borders that abound in a world full of "others".
The Moroccan story begins with a humble goat herder in the mountains purchasing a large calibur rifle from another local. The purpose is to kill the jackals that threaten his goats, and he leaves it in the charge of his two young sons Ahmed (Said Tarchani) and Yussef (Boubker Ait El Caid). Out of curiosity and boredom they start shooting at distant targets to see the supposed three kilometer range the rifle has. After tiring of rocks they take a couple of shots at the moving vehicles in the valley far below. One of the bullets hits a bus full of tourists, and inside hits one of the passengers, Susan (Cate Blanchett). Her husband, Richard (Brad Pitt), is in a panic as there are no doctors or medical supplies on board and they are many hours from a hospital. He makes the desperate decision to head to the small village of the guide and translator (Mohamed Akhzam) who is leading the tour. It's the closest option.
Back home in San Diego Susan and Richard's two young children Mike (Nathan Gamble) and Debbie (Elle Fanning) are being looked after by the family's trusted longtime live-in nanny and hosekeeper, Amelia (Adriana Barraza). But she's faced with a bit of a delimma, though at first less critical than the one facing the parents; Her son's wedding is taking place that day, and with nobody else she feels she can leave the children with she decides to take them with her to the celebration in Mexico. Her nephew Santiago (Gael García Bernal) who also lives in the United States is driving them across the border.
The third setting is Tokyo as we meet a teenage girl named Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi) who is alternatively depressed, angry and rebellious. She's also a deaf mute, and we learn she lives with her father, played by Kôji Yakusho, and that her mother has recently died. She has a small group of girl friends from school who are also deaf and her Dad knows sign language, but when she walks around the teeming streets and clubs of Tokyo she is very much alone. She's dealing with that isolation as well as the grief about her mother and the usual awkwardness of being a teenager by acting out in sexual ways. She takes off her panties to show a group of boys in a cafeteria and she makes aggressive but unsure attempts at seduction with men like her dentist during an appointment.
It's immediately obvious how the Morocco and Mexico storylines are interlinked but late in the movie before we learn how the Japanese segment intersects, though it does and I won't reveal it in the review. The narrative constantly shifts between the four stories, and it's purposefully kept unclear where each timeline fits in exactly with the others. The Moroccan story is the most straightforward in many ways and probably the least surprising in terms of guessing what will happen, but the acting from Brad Pitt and Boubker Ait El Caid, who plays the younger of the two boys with the rifle, elevates the material. I've always been a fan of Brad's, despite his sex symbol status and being a regular on the front of gossip rags. I think by in large he's underrated as an actor, and he does some of his best work yet in Babel. Unglamorously playing his age (he'll be forty-three in December) and having to go through shock, love, horror, anger, empathy and fear in trying to save his critically injured wife, it's a showcase for how strong he is and tools we don't get to see him use in some of his more popular fare like Ocean's 11 and Mr. & Mrs. Smith that are movie star parts. Pitt has one Oscar nomination from a decade ago (12 Monkeys) and he may well get his second.
The least effective story for me was the Mexican tale. Taking the children to the wedding seems like a perfectly reasonable solution, except for one key piece of information is withheld from the audience, and we don't find out until they're coming back home to San Diego. Gael García Bernal has become one of my very favorite actors (see also The King and The Science of Sleep from this year), but for the sake of the plot his character has to abruptly change direction out of the blue. I didn't buy the hairpin turn, and it makes the trauma that follows more annoying than suspenseful. Iñárritu and Arriaga are both Mexican and Amores Perros as well as Tommy Lee Jones' The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada which was also scripted by Arriaga are brilliant, but it's like they went to the well once too often. The Mexican storyline is the most contrived and least satisfying.
Ultimately the Tokyo tale is the most interesting, if only because you don't really know where it's going or how it even links up to the other stories. The twenty-five-year-old Kikuchi is wonderful and totally convincing playing a sixteen-year-old-or-so girl, and her performance never becomes full of the kind of histrionics lesser actors might have relied upon. Her pain, confusion and anger are palpable, and you hope she is going to save herself before something happens that can't be undone.
Taken with their previous two movies, Iñárritu & Arriaga have created a cinematic triptych of the human condition in the 21st century, and while Babel is more flawed than Amores Perros and 21 Grams it still holds plenty of emotional power with some very good performances.
GRADE: B
Babel (2006 - Alejandro González Iñárritu)
Alejandro González Iñárritu and Guillermo Arriaga, the director and screenwriter who teamed for Amores Perros (2000) and 21 Grams (2003), come together again for a fractured multiple character tale of suffering and human frailty. There are four main story tracks within the narrative set in Morocco, Mexico and Tokyo, and where they overlap puts a spotlight on some of the artificial borders that abound in a world full of "others".
The Moroccan story begins with a humble goat herder in the mountains purchasing a large calibur rifle from another local. The purpose is to kill the jackals that threaten his goats, and he leaves it in the charge of his two young sons Ahmed (Said Tarchani) and Yussef (Boubker Ait El Caid). Out of curiosity and boredom they start shooting at distant targets to see the supposed three kilometer range the rifle has. After tiring of rocks they take a couple of shots at the moving vehicles in the valley far below. One of the bullets hits a bus full of tourists, and inside hits one of the passengers, Susan (Cate Blanchett). Her husband, Richard (Brad Pitt), is in a panic as there are no doctors or medical supplies on board and they are many hours from a hospital. He makes the desperate decision to head to the small village of the guide and translator (Mohamed Akhzam) who is leading the tour. It's the closest option.
Back home in San Diego Susan and Richard's two young children Mike (Nathan Gamble) and Debbie (Elle Fanning) are being looked after by the family's trusted longtime live-in nanny and hosekeeper, Amelia (Adriana Barraza). But she's faced with a bit of a delimma, though at first less critical than the one facing the parents; Her son's wedding is taking place that day, and with nobody else she feels she can leave the children with she decides to take them with her to the celebration in Mexico. Her nephew Santiago (Gael García Bernal) who also lives in the United States is driving them across the border.
The third setting is Tokyo as we meet a teenage girl named Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi) who is alternatively depressed, angry and rebellious. She's also a deaf mute, and we learn she lives with her father, played by Kôji Yakusho, and that her mother has recently died. She has a small group of girl friends from school who are also deaf and her Dad knows sign language, but when she walks around the teeming streets and clubs of Tokyo she is very much alone. She's dealing with that isolation as well as the grief about her mother and the usual awkwardness of being a teenager by acting out in sexual ways. She takes off her panties to show a group of boys in a cafeteria and she makes aggressive but unsure attempts at seduction with men like her dentist during an appointment.
It's immediately obvious how the Morocco and Mexico storylines are interlinked but late in the movie before we learn how the Japanese segment intersects, though it does and I won't reveal it in the review. The narrative constantly shifts between the four stories, and it's purposefully kept unclear where each timeline fits in exactly with the others. The Moroccan story is the most straightforward in many ways and probably the least surprising in terms of guessing what will happen, but the acting from Brad Pitt and Boubker Ait El Caid, who plays the younger of the two boys with the rifle, elevates the material. I've always been a fan of Brad's, despite his sex symbol status and being a regular on the front of gossip rags. I think by in large he's underrated as an actor, and he does some of his best work yet in Babel. Unglamorously playing his age (he'll be forty-three in December) and having to go through shock, love, horror, anger, empathy and fear in trying to save his critically injured wife, it's a showcase for how strong he is and tools we don't get to see him use in some of his more popular fare like Ocean's 11 and Mr. & Mrs. Smith that are movie star parts. Pitt has one Oscar nomination from a decade ago (12 Monkeys) and he may well get his second.
The least effective story for me was the Mexican tale. Taking the children to the wedding seems like a perfectly reasonable solution, except for one key piece of information is withheld from the audience, and we don't find out until they're coming back home to San Diego. Gael García Bernal has become one of my very favorite actors (see also The King and The Science of Sleep from this year), but for the sake of the plot his character has to abruptly change direction out of the blue. I didn't buy the hairpin turn, and it makes the trauma that follows more annoying than suspenseful. Iñárritu and Arriaga are both Mexican and Amores Perros as well as Tommy Lee Jones' The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada which was also scripted by Arriaga are brilliant, but it's like they went to the well once too often. The Mexican storyline is the most contrived and least satisfying.
Ultimately the Tokyo tale is the most interesting, if only because you don't really know where it's going or how it even links up to the other stories. The twenty-five-year-old Kikuchi is wonderful and totally convincing playing a sixteen-year-old-or-so girl, and her performance never becomes full of the kind of histrionics lesser actors might have relied upon. Her pain, confusion and anger are palpable, and you hope she is going to save herself before something happens that can't be undone.
Taken with their previous two movies, Iñárritu & Arriaga have created a cinematic triptych of the human condition in the 21st century, and while Babel is more flawed than Amores Perros and 21 Grams it still holds plenty of emotional power with some very good performances.
GRADE: B