Babel [2006]
Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu
Actor: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett
This story is told through the eyes of four different people, most of them continents apart, but all directly or indirectly involved in the shooting of an American tourist (Blanchett) in Morocco. Her husband (Pitt) is confronted by the inability for a lot of people to comprehend him as he struggles to get his wife some medical help in the middle of rural Morocco, while back in the United States his maid (Adriana Barraza) takes care of the children, but wants to attend her son’s wedding back in Mexico. America is claiming it to be a terrorist attack, while the Moroccan police desperately try to find the perpetrator in order to avoid a political conflict. The perpetrator is a boy whose father is a goat-herder, and recently bought the rifle used off a friend, who frequently acts as a guide for tourists. The man told his son to shoot jackals, but the boy got a little carried away showing off his prowess to his brother. Meanwhile, halfway around the world, a mute Japanese schoolgirl is struggling in her own world of being unable to communicate as her father is sought by the police for questioning regarding the rifle he owned, and gave away to his guide when hunting in Morocco several years back.
Each of the characters is faced with their inability to properly communicate with those around them. Miscommunication in every linguistic form you can think of passes the revue in this film, and ironically, I took my girlfriend to see it, who couldn’t understand the Dutch subtitles so was left guessing as to what happened most of the time.
Not as good as I thought it would be, relatively predictable, though you are constantly angry at how the characters seem to dig their own grave deeper and deeper, seemingly disconcerned with the consequences to others. It’s a long movie, but very, very beautiful.
