Reviewed by Lamar Kukuk
1/11/07
Four interlocking stories
of wildly varying quality are told to no good end in Alejandro Gonzalez
Inarritu's Babel, another in the increasingly popular Indie genre
some wise critic (whose name sadly escapes me) dubbed The Hyperlink Movie
(because all the various characters impact each other for brief moments
we might click on and head over to the other story). Four main story
threads are intercut, although they are not happening at the same time,
allowing us to have mild surprise at hearing one end of a telephone conversation
at the beginning of the movie and the other end of the same conversation
at the end. When this works (Pulp Fiction, anyone?) it can
be really electrifying and the various stories can comment on each other
in surprising ways. But Babel remains stubbornly out of focus.
Its' point is right out there in the title for all to see, but what happens
onscreen only occasionally serves any purpose other than to ladle on the
melodrama. Because the plot is decidedly non-linear, I'll discuss
its' four segments in descending order of quality.
The best, which would make
an outstanding short film if freed of its' companions, is set in Japan,
where we watch a deaf-mute girl (Rinko Kikuchi) drift through a miserable,
detached existence throwing herself at every guy who might have sex with
her. When a young policeman shows up looking for her father (Koji
Yakusho), she invites him upstairs promising information in order to get
him alone.
In Morocco, a disillusioned
vacationing couple (Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett) find their malaise interrupted
by a bullet that comes through the window of their tour bus, striking her
in the neck. The bus pulls over in a nearby town where she's treated
by the local healers, while he makes a desperate effort to keep the bus
from leaving. As the shooting becomes an international incident,
it becomes harder, rather than easier, to find someone willing to take
responsibility for transporting her to safety.
But it was no terrorist who
fired the shot, just a child named Yussef (Boubker Ait El Caid), showing
off the rifle he and his brother (Said Tarchani) have been given to keep
the livestock safe. Soon enough, all manner of authorities are after
them, as people all over the world clamor for an arrest in the case.
Finally, there's the sad
, sad case of a nanny (Adriana Barraza) who expects her charges parents
to be home in time for her to attend her son's wedding in Mexico.
When they aren't, and she's unable to find anyone to watch the children
for her, she simply packs them into her nephew Santiago's (Gael Garcia
Bernal) car and they all head across the border for the wedding.
It's a nice wedding and the kids have a good time, but alas Santiago has
a bit too much to drink, and his desire not to get busted for driving drunk
at a border checkpoint begins a dark (and laughably melodramatic) spiral
of events that might doom them all.
All of these events are connected
in ways, some large, some small, designed to underscore the fact that It's
One Big World in which we live and to opine “If Only We Could All Understand
Each Other”. Babel's biggest problem is that while these points
are often skillfully made on a small scale (the moving final shot really
sticks with me), the big picture is really much ado about nothing.
Much effort has been put into filling the screen with people speaking different
languages (“Babel”, GET IT?!?), with only we the viewer knowing what everyone
is saying thanks to Mr. Subtitle. However, I can't think of a single
time when a language barrier actually drives or even affects the plot.
Similarly, the characters are all interconnected in one way or another,
but these connections never managed to illuminate or even surprise: yes,
you can cite a connection between me and the guy who sold me my movie ticket,
but what exactly does that mean? Anything?
Thus, there are really two
Babels
at war with each other. I liked one quite a bit and had little use
for the other. The movie that's interested in people's need, sometimes
successful, sometimes not, to connect is very compelling. In the
Japanese story, Kikuchi shines in a tremendously challenging role where
she's often nude and always speaking sign language. Over in Morocco,
Pitt and Blanchett start out as Indie cyphers, but by the end have shared
some fine moments together.
Alas, there's also the other
Babel,
the Big Movie that's gonna Change the World and, well, rack up a bunch
of Oscar Nominations. The story involving the Moroccan children is
fine as far as it goes, but the movie never makes those characters come
alive: they're really just victims in an ever-ticking clockwork of
tragedy. But at least their tragedy didn't make me want to laugh
out loud the way the Mexican story did: once the Nanny has left the
children alone in the desert so she can run frantically after distant cars
screaming “Please! Please!”, I felt less sympathy for the character
and more for Adriana Barraza, who gives her role everything she's got but
is hip-deep in quicksand. The harder she tries, the sillier her Big
Cruel Fate seems. Of course, she'll probably end up with an Oscar
Nomination, so I guess she'll laugh last.
Babel wants so badly
to say Big Things and be Great Art that I feel kinda guilty for not really
liking it. The Japanese quarter of the story is outstanding, the
Mexican quarter is awful and the other half will likely fade from my memory
before too long. I suppose Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu would tell
me that we're speaking different languages and I'm doomed to simply never
understand what he's got to say. But I did at least get this much:
friends don't let Gael Garcia Bernal drive drunk. |
