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Babel-icious, 18 May 2007

Author: dunmore_ego from Los Angeles, California

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Four stories intertwine, spanning continents, cultures, cityscapes and chicks without panties.

*Babel* is an exhausting, challenging movie, a masterpiece of construction from writer/director Alejandro González Iñárritu; a tale of alienation amongst the throng, of chest-grabbing desperation and fear and isolation – emotionally defibrillating your brain. You come away from *Babel* nauseous.

That's what makes it so rewarding.

Constructed in non-linear fashion, we are introduced to the characters in *Babel* via sideways leaps in time. Their interplay does not become obvious right away as director Iñárritu juggles causality and consequences, actions and reactions.

Two young Moroccan brothers, tending their sheep on a rocky hilltop, practice shooting a rifle their father gave them as a present, aiming at faraway traffic on the arid, dusty road; a pair of white, young American children are driven south of the border by their Mexican nanny trying to make her son's wedding, then find that the U.S. Border Patrol will not allow the illegal nanny back into the country with them; an insecure deaf, teen Japanese girl, desperate to roll with the in-crowd, tries to lose her virginity with awkward abandon; a couple cheerlessly holidaying in Morocco face near-death from a senseless, accidental shooting…

Except for three main characters, Iñárritu casts unknowns, with many of the Moroccans non-actors (Boubker Ait El Caid and Said Tarchani as the two boys, Mustapha Rachidi as their father, Driss Roukhe as Captain Alarid), yet each of them an acting marvel. Of course, Brad Pitt is onboard (looking suitably haggard) lending marquee strength, but rather than his presence dragging the production into Cheese Hollywood, the movie actually takes *him* the other way into nuance, as he battles to understand the culture and language of the low-caste Moroccan village he is inadvertently trapped in with his wife (Cate Blanchett), shot accidentally by one of the boys.

Even though the Moroccan boys are responsible for shooting a stranger and causing insurmountable misery, there is no ill feeling towards them, as the movie shows us how their unthinking act also impacted them even more adversely than their unintended victim. We feel the same way towards the nanny who irresponsibly takes her two young charges out of the country and is then made to suffer overwhelming fear and near-death in the desert for her stupidity. In all four stories, no one is innocent, yet being guilty does not make us hate them.

Three of the stories are very solidly intertwined (the shot woman, the Morrocan boys, the children in Mexico). The fourth story takes a good time to slot into any relevance, that of Chieko, the Japanese girl (Rinko Kikuchi), although her predicament is a story unto itself.

With the main theme being isolation, writers Iñárritu and Guillermo Arriaga convey that language is not the only obstacle that people might have to overcome in communication – Chieko's deafness (and by extension, any disability to the human condition) is just as isolating.

Going panty-less everywhere in her quest to lose her virginity, Chieko not only does those normal things that teenagers do (in the grip of wild hormones and wilder drugs) but overcompensates in her quest for acceptance as a deaf person.

In a nightclub scene (that alternates between sense-glutting and suddenly ripping to vacuum when we see the clamor from Chieko's soundless point of view) Iñárritu captures that indefinable euphoria of teen puppy love – and how it is dashed to pieces, as Cheiko realizes the teen boy whom she felt a connection with would just as haphazardly "connect" with her best friend. She is driven to boldly throw herself sexually at a police officer, who ethically refuses her awkward advances.

The Border Patrol scene (involving Monica del Carmen as the nanny, Gael García Bernal as her impetuous driver and Clifton Collins Jr., in a chilling performance as a Border Patrol Guard) strikes close to home for Californians, and shows us how immigration procedures, while useful to a *country's* security (read as government's greed), only create horror and pain for individuals.

Bernal's performance in this film outshines Pitt, as Pitt's on screen time is packed solid with "Oscar Clips," while Bernal (like his smoldering role in *Y Tu Mama Tambien*) makes "acting" look like business as usual.

In a way, I feel sorry for Pitt because he needs to pull off so much extra acting-choppery to convince time and again that he is not just a pretty face. Not EVEN a pretty face, as it stands in this production, prompting many reviewers to comment he "plays against type" in *Babel*(whatever "type" they've burned into their minds - as far as I'm concerned, Pitt has always displayed a great acting depth; he just happens to be burdened with that glam-slamming mug and taut obliques).

Why can't more people make films this good? (That question answers itself when Adam Sandler and Will Ferrell enter the equation as economic gears.)

You come away from *Babel* with your guts broiling, vowing to try to understand the plights of others – or at least vowing to get your immigration papers in order before attending that off-the-hook party in Tijuana.

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