Film Review

09 January 2009 04:41 BST

Babel

Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, in cinemas from January 19th, starring Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Gael García Bernal and Rinko Kikuchi, running time 142 minutes.

In a nutshell…

Thought provoking, multi-cultural drama

What's it all about?

Iñárritu creates films with multiple threads that eventually come together to reveal the entirety of the plot and Babel is no different.

The first thread we are presented with takes us to Morocco where Yussef and his brother are charged to look after the family's herd of goats. Iñárritu then weaves a tangled web of interconnections which link the rest of the film back to these significant moments.

Elsewhere in Morocco an American couple are seemingly in the clutches of breaking up and have gone on holiday in an effort to resolve their very obvious differences.

Another part of the story takes place in Japan where a young girl struggles to come to terms with being socially ostracised.

In America a Mexican nanny is struggling to balance the demands of her job with her family commitments in Mexico.

The individual storylines begin to unravel as the film progresses and the characters lives unravel with it.

Who's in it?

Brad Pitt is undoubtedly the biggest name in the film and performs well within the ensemble cast, his performance is heartfelt and deft while Cate Blanchett is as serene as ever playing his wife.

The revelation of the film is Rinko Kikuchi who gives a bittersweet performance as a teenage girl frustrated with the limitations of her life. Kikuchi shows immense maturity handling some of the most delicate scenes of the film.

Gael García Bernal adopts a supporting role but his presence still shimmers when on the screen as he plays an out of character role with relish.

As an example…

Susan - "Richard, why did we come here?"
Richard - "To be alone."
Susan looks around the restaurant - "Alone?!"

Richard – "I need to call my embassy."

Likelihood of a trip to the Oscars

Iñárritu won the award for best director at this year's Cannes festival and the film won a Golden Globe for best Drama. It has also been nominated for seven Baftas including best film. The film has already grossed $20 million and is likely to achieve further nominations when the Oscars are announced.

What the others say

"A deterministically grim mindset in the cause of its philosophical aspirations, but is gripping nearly all the way." – Variety.com

"Babel can be unnecessarily convoluted, ultimately though it's the stark simplicity of the dilemmas faced by each character that hits home, wherever that may be." - BBCi

So is it any good?

Babel is the director's attempt to tell a tale about the actions and words that stop the human race from attaining a common solidarity.

A number of themes come through the film; particularly the nature of authority, those who assume it and how it is used and abused by both people with and without a uniform. Babel is also a lesson in the fragility of life and the sufferance caused to individuals by unknowing others.

All the characters experience loss and isolation in their various guises which is reflected by the desolate landscapes in which the film is set. In this film without borders communication is the ultimate boundary.

Non-linear narratives can often be hard to watch and Babel tries to rely on its overarching theme to carry it through. Iñárritu wants us to listen though it remains to be seen if the characters will.

Ultimately this film feels a little too fractured and while it contains some stunning performances and touches on some important issues concerning world politics it is the Japanese storyline which is in the end the most rewarding.

Babel is a very good film; however, it may not be greater than the sum of its parts.

8/10

Dominic Beaumont

Your comments:

"Spot on. Regarding the film being "a little too fractured", I found that very annoying. It's ok for a story to use the device of a 'frame' at the beginning and end in the form of flashbacks which allow us all to put the story together and make sense of it (together with various other flashbacks throughout the body of the film), but this film breaks that convention so severely as to become more like an exercise in an IQ test. It feels like the director's deliberately jumbled it up in the cutting room to give us a sense of "Ah ha" at the end, but it just left me feeling "What's the point?" and "Why should I bother trying to make sense of this?" To put it another way, his key 'prefix' and 'suffix' flashbacks are neither pivotal nor poetic, and as for being revelatory - that was just irritating." - Alan Ayling.

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