Plot: This is a complex tale of four interlocking stories. A poor Moroccan family acquires a rifle to protect their goats. An American couple's bus tour holiday is shattered when she is accidentally shot. That couple's children, at home in the USA with their nanny/housekeeper, accompany her to Mexico to attend her son's wedding. A Japanese father, whose wife has committed suicide some time ago, is unable to communicate with his teenage daughter. A tragic tale of mistakes and miscommunication for all.
My View: In the ancient biblical tale of the of Babel (Genesis 11:1-8) mankind attempts to build a tower that would reach heaven. Inevitably God is angered by this and quashes their attempt by causing them to speak in many different languages and spreading them across the Earth.
Director and writer
Alejandro González Iñárritu’s film Babel is not too unlike this cautionary Biblical tale. As with nearly every Greek tragedy, and the story of the Tower of Babel the conflict isn’t just the differing languages or cultures, it’s in mankind’s hubris or pride. Every sub-plot conflict is resultant of a character taking a problem and exacerbating it by lying, ignoring, or simply following in their own foolish ways and instead of putting aside their pride, their problems build upon problems until the patches of lies, deceit and foolishness can no longer hold back the inevitable, terrible consequence. It is a wonder to behold this difficult and sometimes fatal chain of events but the storytelling is, at moments, masterful and makes that sense of awe unavoidable.
This very expansive interweaving storyline gives almost a little too much room for exposition and its back-and-forth storytelling at times keeps the tension almost too high (if that’s even possible) and at other times nearly kills the stories’ mood. But Iñárritu is good at what he does and it seems that this type of storytelling is his forte. His previous efforts, like 21 Grams (2003) and Amores Perros (2000) employ a very similar technique in storytelling and also carry a very similar sense of dread one encounters with Babel.
But something is slightly different with this film.
First of all, though the film has much exposition, some of the characters are not entirely relatable or at all interesting. For instance, the Japanese narrative with the conflict between the father and daughter has very little to do with the father, who is the binding force for the story as he is the character that leaves the rifle in Morocco, which is sold to the Moroccan goat herders, that is used to shoot the American tourist, that lay in the house that Jack built. But his relationship with his daughter or lack thereof is underutilized and comes out with much less resonance.
Secondly, the film every so often touches on child sexuality, a subject matter that I do not like watching and at times weren’t entirely necessary to the plot. The preteen Moroccan boy watches his preteen sister disrobe and masturbates behind a rock, though nothing graphic is shown. The Japanese school girl decides to remove her underwear and go Britney Spears style to a local teenage hang-out (and her scenes tend to be slightly more graphic). It borders on exploitation and though it isn’t exactly Larry Clark (Kids, Bully, Ken Park) exploitative it makes me uncomfortable, though maybe that is the point.
Nonetheless the performances alone could carry this film. Not to say that the story was all too terrible, I rather enjoyed its twists and turns and Iñárritu is still rather great at this form of storytelling. The emotional drive of this film is powerful and had me gripping the armrests in the theater at some very intense moments. And truly that is the mark of a good film; when you find yourself so enraptured in the story arch of a character that your heart beats just a bit faster as you wait with bated breath till the end. And Babel does just that.
Similar films: Crash, Amores Perros, 21 Grams, Magnolia
