"Babel" Directed by: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu Cast: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Rinko Kikuchi, Adriana Barraza, Elle Fanning, Nathan Gamble, Michael Peña, Gael Garca Bernal, Koji Yakusho Rated: R (for adult language, nudity, violence) Running time: 142 minutes Best suited for: deep thinkers who can slip between even cinematic lines Least suited for: those who just don't "get it" without pyrotechnics or vampires I'm not one to randomly ask for rating guidance (not unless at least one Lamborghini has changed hands the night before), but as the curtain closed on "Babel" I was too busy rolling my eyes to realize that my wife, Eileen, had been quietly sobbing through much of the third act.
Others in the audience sat wetcheeked and red-eyed. I realized there may have been more to the film than my cynical smirk might indicate. This was going to be a tough one to accurately gauge.
In its richest sense, "Babel" is a film about the subtle consequences of communication-and the far more serious consequences when communication fails. To that degree, the film is both powerful and, arguably, magnificently rendered.
It is also a film brimming with the promise of imminent disaster. Frankly, for the first hour, I would agree with my wife's assessment that "Babel" was "brilliantly, uniquely worthy of five stars."
"Babel" is a compilation of disparate stories that gradually spiral together. For those of you who, like me, prefer to be hit over the head with blatant visual cues rather than tickled by subtleties and nuance, you might have trouble with the film.
And speaking of subtleties- because this is important-in an early scene, a Mexican housekeeper (Adriana Barraza) receives two phone calls that will soon affect her life.
It is imperative to understand that these two calls are made by different people. If you miss that particular nuance, the entire film changes meaning.
Richard and Susan (Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett) are vacationing in Morocco. Their marriage is strained, and for the longest time we won't know why. In the distant hills, a shepherd's two sons are taking potshots with a hunting rifle.
Without malicious intent, one aims at the speck of a tour bus grumbling through the desert- and fires.
Half a world away, in San Diego, two children are driven south across the border when their Mexican nanny refuses to miss her son's wedding. (Mom and Dad happen to be vacationing in Morocco.) The journey is hardly a kidnapping, more an adventure for the two tykes.
Yet despite their loving nanny's best intentions, the tequila and beer flow freely at the wedding until nearly dawn.
Far away again, Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi,) a deaf-mute teenager in Tokyo, tries desperately to find love. Her mother has recently committed suicide-due to a loveless marriage perhaps?- and one realizes that Chieko might be losing her grip on reality. When policemen appear to question her father, they throw the girl into a state of confusion.
Bad things are about to happen to good people. Such is the spice of good drama, but, in my opinion, a seasoning to be applied sparingly, judiciously.
In "Babel" bad situations turn worse, and then worse again, and worse still.
When a director fears his audience might not hear a pin drop, some may tentatively drop two. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu relies on a cymbal crash of dramatic infusion to make his point.
Is such vibration necessary?
Grousing home from the theater, I was reminded by my wife that very often communication breaks down at the rational, thinking level because we are taught to be so deeply attached to our beliefs as to feel the need to be right, before we're certain of the truth. (Admittedly, this is a basic premise in "Babel.") Eileen didn't hear the cacophony; instead, she saw many beautiful touch points in the film-a gesture, a small act of kindness, a smile, "so far beyond the intellectual level that, when we trust ourselves enough to practice these gestures, we can rediscover our ability to connect with each other on a deeper human level." She actually said that. (Told you she was deep.)
She managed to connect with the film on a level that embraced our sameness, not our difference-which I also admit was likely Inarritu's intent.
"I asked myself what message I received," she said, "and answered by listening for new thoughts that moved inside me, ideas that hadn't entered my consciousness in quite this way before-that every one of us makes choices based on the information we have thus far gathered from life. That sometimes our choices collide in the material universe. And when they do, lessons will be learned from the experience."
Which is why I often take her to the movies . . . just not many starring Will Ferrell.
