BABEL

US, 2006, 142 minutes, Colour.
Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Gail Garcia Bernal, Koji Yakusho, Adriana Borraza, Rinko Kikuchi.
Directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu.

A very fine film. Winner of the Ecumenical Prize at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival (where it also won the main award for Best Director).

The Ecumenical Jury citation wanted to draw attention to potential audiences that the film reflects the globalised world in which we live and the breakdown in communication; but it also highlights common humanity and the potential for restoring communication.

Writer Guillermo Arriaga brings his now famous skill in presenting several interwoven stories while playing with timelines (in Amores Perros, 21 Grams, and winner of the 2005 Cannes award for screenplay, Melquiades Estrada).

His fellow Mexican, director Aleyandro Gonzales Inarritu directed both Amores Perros and 21 Grams. Once again he shows great sensitivity, impressive craft and finesse as he moves with ease from the deserts and mountains of Morocco to the deserts and villages of Mexico to the neon brightness of central Tokyo. There is an arresting score and such vivid photography that the landscapes become characters in the stories. Inarritu and Arriaga have opted to be more accessible than in their previous films.

Many of the cast are non-professionals, especially in the Moroccan stories where the family in the mountains, especially the two young boys, stand out. A number of deaf students appear in the Japanese story. And Mexican Inarritu is able to create a wedding celebration in a local village with exuberant Hispanic verve.

The stars are excellent as well. Brad Pitt gives a strongly tender performance, broken only when he is at his wits end after his wife has been shot as they travelled in a tourist bus through the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. He breaks out in that loud and demanding was that Americans have when they expect everything to be at their disposal and at once. Cate Blanchett could have limited herself to an almost passive role as the wounded wife but she brings vitality to the rather small role.

Gael Garcia Bernal who starred in Amores Perros returns to his native Mexico, grins and whoops a lot at the wedding but, returning his aunt to the US with the American children she had taken with her because no one at home was available to mind them, he encounters the American border guards who drive him to desperation. Adriana Barraza as the American children’s nanny ensures that the Mexican story is emotional and moving. In Japan, Koji Yakusho is a widowed father who is at a loss to communicate with his wilful deaf daughter who has not recovered from her mother’s suicide (a tour-de-force performance from Rinko Kikuchi).

Babel is the image from the book of Genesis image: God confounds the human race, when the king arrogantly tries to build the tower that will reach to heaven, by creating languages, confusion, misinterpretation. Inarritu notes that while languages separate (Moroccan from American, Spanish from English, Japanese from sign language), there is a common human spine, a common human core. Suffering can destroy but it can also lead to transformation and reconciliation.

The misunderstanding theme is very strong as Americans, especially amid the apprehensions from the war against terrorism, are prone to fear the worst and interpret more straightforward events in a sinister way. An accidental shooting becomes an alert against fundamentalist Islamic terrorists. Just being a Mexican at the American border can lead to frayed tempers, presumptions of guilt and the unnecessarily heavy hand of the law.

The other theme concerns consequences of actions and responsibility, where disasters can follow from a boast, a rivalry, a lie, a good-hearted decision that can be threatened by legal action. Well worth seeing.

1. The impact of the film? Four distinct stories - but interlinked, intercut?

2. The career of Inarritu? His style? The writer and his use of multiple stories, shifts in time? Their making their themes and style more accessible in Babel?

3. The structure of the film: the introduction, the Moroccan story, intercutting the story of the couple, introducing the Mexican story through the phone call, the Japanese story through the
rifle? The time shifts - especially at the end with the phone call and the Mexican story about to happen?

4. The strength of the cast, the non-professionals, the professionals?

5. The Moroccan settings, the mountains? Mexico and the village, the desert? Japan and the affluent city? The variety of locations - and a sense of globalisation? The locations becoming akin to characters? The evocations of the musical score?

6. The film's sympathy for ordinary people, the Moroccans, the Mexicans? The critique of the dominance of Americans and English-speaking people?

7. The image of the United States, the war against terrorism, immediate fear and suspicions, domination and arrogance, expectations of everything for them? Commanding people? Issues of politics, paranoia? The repercussions on people's lives? The Mexican border, suspicions? Simply for Mexicans at the border? The background of illegals?

8. Terror and its effect on the bus people, their behaviour, the Englishman and his aggression? Their fears?

9. The Moroccan story, interest in the family, empathy with the family? The opening with the man journeying to sell the rifle - and the revelation that the Japanese businessman had left it for him as a gift? The police suspicions that it was black market? The family, buying the rifle, the enjoyable haggling? The sale and the goat? The family, the two boys, their rivalry, the older wanting to assert himself but his being ineffectual, especially with the rifle? The younger and his being a good shot? The issue of the younger boy looking through the wall at his naked sister? The older boy reporting it desperately to the father? The boys going out with the goats, trying to shoot the
jackals? The rivalry leading to the shot at the car, at the bus? The police and the investigation, suspicions? The authorities thinking it was terrorists? The attack on the man who sold the rifle, the brutal treatment, bashing, his wife? Her leading the police to the family, seeing them in the hills, the boys having told their father, running away, retrieving the rifle? Their being caught, the shoot-out, the wounding of the older boy, his death? The father's grief? The younger boy breaking the rifle, holding his hands up, confessing? The future?

10. The presentation of the police, the brutality of the interrogations, the shooting first action? The diplomatic background, the pressure from the American government, seeing the American officials? The war on terror? Seeing the information on television, especially in Japan?

11. The portrait of the couple, on the tour, the restaurant, Susan and her fussiness about the food, throwing away the ice? Richard and his feeling of guilt, his having run away with the death of
their child? His thinking that she would not forgive him? On the bus, Susan sleeping, the suddenness of the shot, the extent of her bleeding? Stopping the bus, the young guide and his helping? In the desert, feeling of helplessness? Turning the bus around, going to the village? The fears of the passengers, the burly man and his aggression? Richard and his ultimate desperation and punching the man? Susan taken to the house, the old woman looking after her - and especially the gentleness of giving her the hashish to ease her pain? The young man and his vigil? Richard showing him the photos of his children? Getting the vet, the issue of stitching, Susan's fear? The tenderness of Richard's looking after her, her embarrassment at peeing, getting the pan? The continued delay?
Richard and the phone call, the diplomatic response, the embassy? The helicopter issue? The bus people getting more angry? The bus leaving? The helicopter and the rescue? Richard offering the guide the money and his refusal? The implicit Moroccan hospitality? The hospital, the need for the operation? Richard and his phone call to the children (the audience having already seen it from the point of view of the little boy)? His weeping? The connection with the children and their story?

12. The children, their relationship with Amalia? Her being like a nanny? Allaying the little girl's fears, the light in the room? The dilemma about her having to take the children with her, trying to get other friends to mind them? The decision to go to Mexico? The illegality? Santiago and his arrival, his style? Exuberant? The wedding, the joy, Amalia's son? The dancing, the kissing and the cake, the spirit of celebration? The decision to return, Santiago and his being drunk, the driving of the car and going on the edge? At the border, the suspicions of the Americans? Having a look in the trunk, wanting the documents? The passports of the children? Santiago and his getting irritated, his reaction? The behaviour of the police, the manner of speaking? Santiago and his taking off, the culmination of Mexican anger against the Americans? The chase, letting Amalia out with the children?
Their fears, in the middle of the desert? Amalia having to leave them, searching for the vehicle? Her being arrested? Interrogated before action for the children? Her being questioned, an illegal, the sixteen years in America, her being ousted? The phone call, Richard not pressing charges? The news that the children had been found? Her future?

13. The Japanese story, the game, the girls, it emerging that the girl was deaf? Her anger, tantrum with the referee, being sent off? The girls in the dressing room blaming her for losing the game? Her driving with her father, her antagonism towards him? Her going to the club with the girls? The boys watching, her resentment about their reaction, her deafness? Her sexual insecurity, provocative, the panties, exposing herself? Going to the dentist, licking the dentist and his reaction and
ousting her? Going to the mall, meeting the boys with the drugs? The taking of the drugs, going to the disco? Jealousy of her friend kissing the boy? Her going home, the police and their wanting to talk? Her having met the police earlier, talking about the attraction? The issue of her mother jumping and her explaining this to the policeman? Her taking off her clothes, provoking the policeman? His reaction, care for her? Listening to her? His leaving, meeting the father on his return, the truth about the mother's death? The policeman reading the girl's note? The father, the girl's desperation, her standing naked on the balcony? The final image of reconciliation with her father?

14. The story of Babel in Genesis, the different languages, people going their separate ways? Hostility? Yet the common human core? People coming together? Language and misinterpretation, the consequences? Issues of responsibility and consequences - small events leading to disasters and consequences? Yet themes of suffering, transformation, reconciliation and hope?