Babel is a film dedicated to communicating to us the importance of communication and how in todays world it can fail us. This film however does not follow in the foot steps of the tower of Babel but in the actual babbling of children.
The film develops four separate story lines that are easily connected even though there is a possible attempt to make us wonder at the connection.
We meet a married couple (Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett) traveling together through Morocco in an attempt to reconnect but failing at every turn. A young Shepard boy and his brother in Morocco who accidentally shoot at the bus the young couple is traveling in seriously injuring the wife. The couples Mexican nanny (Adriana Barraza) who takes the couples two children with her to Mexico for her sons wedding when the couple can not return do to the shooting. Finally we meet Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi), a deaf-mute Japanese school girl struggling with the suicide of her mom and a Dad she doesn't communicate well with.
This film suffers from the same thing that Crash did, so much going on and poorly done story telling. No character gets enough story time to make us actually care about them and in most cases they become annoying or give us no reason to sympathize with them. The characters are well acted but written as two dimensional figures portraying simple images. While each actor is very good they are never given enough screen time to take their character from the simple figure to a deep person.
The so called connections between each story is also supposed to be discovered by us slowly as the film goes on with Chieko's role being the final reveal. The problem is within the first 15 minutes or so we know exactly how the couple, Shepard boy, and nanny fit together and in the next ten can simply deduce Chieko's role. It is a juvenile line played out quickly and ends the movie before we have a chance to care (not that we have anything to care about).
It is also like Crash in that in its attempt to get its point across it hits us in the head with extremes instead of making us look at the true issues we each face. Alejandro González Iñárritu and Guillermo Arriaga wish for us to see different ways in which we fail at communication not just with language and strangers but in emotion with those close to us. The problem is we don't really care about these people and can see clearly where they fail. We face extremes and can walk away saying that I am glad I am not like that. The film makers could have served their goal better by clearly focusing on the family and how they may communicate well with others outside the family but can not convey simple things to those they are closest to. True it isn't as dramatic as they may want or as artsy but would have been a lot better then the confused and shallow story they gave us.
I also have to mention the use of disgusting and useless sexual content in this film, which is done exclusively by the underage characters. One of the Shepard boys spies on his older sister while she changes and then we are treated to a scene of him masturbating while thinking about it. Chieko struggles with sexuality which is normal for teens in her situation, but to drive the point home we get to see her flash her bare crotch to older boys, forces her dentist to grab her crotch during an exam, strips completely naked for a total strange and forces him to touch her breasts. The portion with the Shepard boy is useless and adds nothing to the story, but if it did it could have been handled in a more mature way. As for Chieko, while her actions are born from her pain the director preferred to treat us like idiots and show us everything instead of being creative with how they revealed these problems.
In all this film was not creative or insightful. In truth it is an exercise in cheap film making in an attempt to appear deep and forward thinking. There are better more intelligent ways to communicate everything this film desires to tell us but few in Hollywood are smart enough to do it.
The film develops four separate story lines that are easily connected even though there is a possible attempt to make us wonder at the connection.
We meet a married couple (Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett) traveling together through Morocco in an attempt to reconnect but failing at every turn. A young Shepard boy and his brother in Morocco who accidentally shoot at the bus the young couple is traveling in seriously injuring the wife. The couples Mexican nanny (Adriana Barraza) who takes the couples two children with her to Mexico for her sons wedding when the couple can not return do to the shooting. Finally we meet Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi), a deaf-mute Japanese school girl struggling with the suicide of her mom and a Dad she doesn't communicate well with.
This film suffers from the same thing that Crash did, so much going on and poorly done story telling. No character gets enough story time to make us actually care about them and in most cases they become annoying or give us no reason to sympathize with them. The characters are well acted but written as two dimensional figures portraying simple images. While each actor is very good they are never given enough screen time to take their character from the simple figure to a deep person.
The so called connections between each story is also supposed to be discovered by us slowly as the film goes on with Chieko's role being the final reveal. The problem is within the first 15 minutes or so we know exactly how the couple, Shepard boy, and nanny fit together and in the next ten can simply deduce Chieko's role. It is a juvenile line played out quickly and ends the movie before we have a chance to care (not that we have anything to care about).
It is also like Crash in that in its attempt to get its point across it hits us in the head with extremes instead of making us look at the true issues we each face. Alejandro González Iñárritu and Guillermo Arriaga wish for us to see different ways in which we fail at communication not just with language and strangers but in emotion with those close to us. The problem is we don't really care about these people and can see clearly where they fail. We face extremes and can walk away saying that I am glad I am not like that. The film makers could have served their goal better by clearly focusing on the family and how they may communicate well with others outside the family but can not convey simple things to those they are closest to. True it isn't as dramatic as they may want or as artsy but would have been a lot better then the confused and shallow story they gave us.
I also have to mention the use of disgusting and useless sexual content in this film, which is done exclusively by the underage characters. One of the Shepard boys spies on his older sister while she changes and then we are treated to a scene of him masturbating while thinking about it. Chieko struggles with sexuality which is normal for teens in her situation, but to drive the point home we get to see her flash her bare crotch to older boys, forces her dentist to grab her crotch during an exam, strips completely naked for a total strange and forces him to touch her breasts. The portion with the Shepard boy is useless and adds nothing to the story, but if it did it could have been handled in a more mature way. As for Chieko, while her actions are born from her pain the director preferred to treat us like idiots and show us everything instead of being creative with how they revealed these problems.
In all this film was not creative or insightful. In truth it is an exercise in cheap film making in an attempt to appear deep and forward thinking. There are better more intelligent ways to communicate everything this film desires to tell us but few in Hollywood are smart enough to do it.