We are all of us members of the human race, no matter our ethnicity, our gender identity, our cultural history, our faith, or our native language. Strip all of that, and dozens of other identity markers we use to try and differentiate ourselves with, and what you have left is our basic humanity. We laugh, we cry, we get angry, we feel passion, depression, hope, and hopelessness. “Prick us, do we not bleed?” There is the Biblical story told by Moses in the book of Genesis about the great tower of Babel, where the inhabitants of the Earth attempted to build a tower to reach heaven, and God smote them and confounded their language so that none could communicate with each other, and their evil plans came to naught. Language, in this story, became a barrier in which people could not communicate properly with each other. The same theme is on display in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s 2006 film, Babel.
This film has been described as a butterfly effect film, and to a degree, that is correct. But it isn’t as easily described as that when you boil it down to the essential themes and the plot. This is a film about humanity, choices, and their consequences, and how all of us are linked together as humans. There are things in our lives that are the same no matter who you are and where you are from. We all eat, we bleed, and we have wants and needs that are generally universal. Every main character in this film has made a bad decision that affects the plot of the film, and most of them also, in a less direct fashion, affect one or more of the other characters, even though they may be thousands of miles away and don’t know each other. No one comes out of this narrative unscathed, and some don’t make it out of it alive. Through it all, a fundamental lack of communication, either from a difference in language or an unwillingness to listen, comes into play. This film has a rather large cast of main characters, but much like other network narratives, it gives them equal importance to the overall plot.
The story follows four groups of people, all of whom are tied together in some way. The first of these is Abdullah (Mustapha Rachidi) and his family, including his two sons: Yussef (Boubker Ait El Caid) and Ahmed (Said Tarchani). Abdullah is a goat herder living in Morocco. He buys a rifle from his neighbor to shoot the jackals that have been preying on his goats. He gives the gun to his young sons and charges them with tending the herd and killing the jackals. Doubtful of the range of the weapon, the two boys head up into the mountains and aim it at the rocks in the distance. When a bus filled with tourists shows up on the road far below, Yussef, believing it is too far away to hit, aims at it and fires. The bullet makes contact with the bus, causing the two boys to flee into the hills and hide the rifle.
Visiting Morocco, in a desperate bid to save their marriage, are Richard (Brad Pitt) and Susan (Cate Blanchett). Their infant son Sam recently died from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), which has put a strain on their relationship, and they are trying to work through their sorrow through a vacation away from the rest of their family, two young children they have left in the care of their Mexican caretaker, Amelia (Adriana Barraza), in San Diego. While traveling on a tour bus, a bullet pierces one of the windows and hits Susan in the neck, causing her to bleed out heavily. Richard detours the bus to the nearby village of Tazarine, where there is a local doctor and a telephone. Meanwhile, the rest of the tourists are getting antsy and aggressive about moving on, in part because of the lack of air conditioning while the bus waits and their fear that more violence may come.
Meanwhile, back in San Diego, Amelia has been waiting for Susan’s sister to take the two children in for the day so she can travel to Mexico to attend her son’s wedding. But the sister fails to show up, and Amelia tries in vain to find someone else who can watch them at the last minute. When that fails, she decides to take the kids with her across the border into Mexico, escorted by her nephew since she doesn’t have a car. Getting into Mexico is easy, whereas getting back out ends up being a nightmare that nearly costs her and the two young children their lives.
The final story takes place in Tokyo, Japan. Chieko Wataya (Rinko Kikuchi) is a troubled young woman who battles feelings of depression and anger, viewing herself as an unwanted outsider amongst her peers thanks to her being deaf and mute. In the face of this, she lashes out with her sexuality, flashing a young man she found attractive who was turned off by her disability. Her father has recently returned from a hunting expedition in Morocco, where he gifted his rifle to his guide at the end of the trip. This gun has been identified by the Moroccan police as the one used in a “terrorist act,” and the police come to his home wanting to talk with him about it. Instead, they find Chieko alone. She thinks they are back to harass her and her father again over the suicide of her mother and turns them away without finding out what they are really there for.
All of these stories are tied together while also having their own plots and story arcs. They also involve poor decisions being made by the protagonists in their own segments. In the case of Abdullah and his kids, the poor decision is entrusting his sons with the rifle. They are far too young to be allowed possession of such a weapon unsupervised. Richard and Susan shouldn’t have been running away from their pain, assuming a change of locale would make things better. They should have been with their children, working through their grief together. Amelia makes the bad decision to take the kids to Mexico. This decision isn’t nearly as bad as her decision to bring them back that same night, getting a ride with her nephew who has been drinking. By trying to cross the border into the United States in the middle of the night with two white children in the back of the car, it leads to a tense encounter with the border patrol and the nephew attempting to flee the law. Amelia and the kids end up on foot in the desert and nearly costing them their lives. Lastly, Chieko has a terrible relationship with her father. He is emotionally distant, but she makes no efforts on her own to narrow that gap between them. She witnessed her mother’s suicide and needs therapy to work through her emotional trauma, but instead, she throws herself at men, using her body in a desperate bid for affection and physical contact with anyone.
While the situations in all of these stories are sympathetic, in most cases, the characters are not. We can sympathize with Richard and Susan because she has been shot in a developing country in the middle of nowhere and may die because he cannot get an ambulance to come get her to an actual hospital. But Susan is depicted as bitter and angry, and Richard is pushy and uncaring of anyone other than those in his immediate circle. When one of the other tourists points out that someone on the bus has a medical condition and cannot stay there without air conditioning, Richard’s response is to threaten to kill them if they try to leave. When he contacts Amelia at home and hears about her dilemma with finding someone to watch the kids, his response is to tell her to cancel the wedding and he’ll pay for a new one when they get home. He’s callous and unwilling to listen and understand the position that she is in. He’s in panic mode because of Susan’s injury, but that only excuses so much.
Amelia makes a very bad decision, herself. In an attempt to avoid admitting to Richard and Susan that she took the kids to Mexico, she elects to return home in the middle of the night, driven by her nephew who has been drinking. All of this is so the kids can attend a soccer practice in the morning, and she can pretend the trip didn’t happen. Had she accepted the invitation to spend the night in Mexico and return in the morning, it was likely they wouldn’t have had the problems at the border that they did. The consequences from Richard and Susan might have still been severe but not nearly as bad as what happens to her thanks to her run-in with the border patrol.
Abdullah is presented as a good man who doesn’t deserve the sorrow that comes to him, at least not to the degree that it does. His youngest son, Yussef, however, is in the process of becoming a young man, and with that comes some questionable decisions. He is seen spying on his older sister when she is changing, something that she is also guilty of because she is aware he is doing it and encourages him. He is the better shot with the rifle but lacks the maturity and respect for the firearm that comes with age and experience. When Abdullah finds out what has happened, he takes his sons and the rifle, and they walk towards the neighbor who sold him the gun’s home only to be stopped by the police along the way. Rather than give himself up and face those consequences, Yussef grabs the rifle and tries to shoot at them. The result is, of course, predictable but no less emotionally powerful.
So much happens in the relatively short 145-minute runtime. There are no extraneous scenes in this, although the scenes in Tokyo, as good as they are in their own right, feel like a diversion away from the real plot. The element that connects this plotline to the rest of the film is tenuous as best, making it the one story that feels like it could have been excised. But in doing so, we would have lost out on the best of the stories, too. It’s also the best-acted sequences of the entire picture, with Rinko Kikuchi really selling the turmoil and emotional distress her character is fighting. It’s difficult getting this across without being able to speak a line of dialogue, but she did such a good job that she was rewarded with an Oscar nomination for it, competing directly with Adriana Barraza in the same category. Her moment with the young police officer where she comes out of the other room, completely naked, and tries to get him to touch her so she can feel something, anything, is horrifying and riveting at the same time. It’s a hard character to realize, but she does it to perfection.
Babel is not a feel-good movie; that much is clear right from the get-go. It’s the type of movie where you will either exit the theater in somber silence or deep in conversation over what it was you just witnessed. It’s a brilliant bit of filmmaking from a director who has a proven track record coming off of Amores perros and 21 Grams, two films that, coupled with Babel, make an unofficial trilogy. You may not find this film uplifting or life-affirming, but that doesn’t make it not worth the watch. This film will move you and make you feel things that few other films do. It’s dark at times and sometimes a little depressing, but it is also a truly amazing experience.
Academy Award Nominations:
Best Picture: Alejandro González Iñárritu, Jon Kilik, and Steve Golin
Best Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu
Best Supporting Actress: Adriana Barraza
Best Supporting Actress: Rinko Kikuchi
Best Original Screenplay: Guillermo Arriaga
Best Film Editing: Douglas Crise and Stephen Mirrione
Best Original Score: Gustavo Santaolalla (won)
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Release Date: October 27, 2006
Running Time: 144 Minutes
Rated R
Starring: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Adriana Barraza, Rinko Kikuchi, Gael GarcÃa Bernal, and Koji Yukusho
Directed By: Alejandro González Iñárritu
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