Review: Babel

I'm finding Babel a tough movie to review, which doesn't happen very often to me. It was thoroughly engaging, and yet still frustrating at times. It was thought-provoking, to be sure, but I'm not really sure what it set out to say, beyond the obvious.

The film tells four inter-related stories: an American couple are traveling through Morocco on a bus tour and wearing their marital problems on their sleeves; a family of goat farmers in Morocco are dealing with their own issues, from jackals who deplete their flock to a young brother spying on an unashamed older sister as she undresses; another brother-sister pair, this time American and at home in southern California, have been left in the care of their Mexican nanny who desperately wants to go home to attend her son's wedding; and a deaf-mute Japanese teenager (played by 25-year-old Rinko Kikuchi, shown above) tries to find some degree of acceptance in a culture that she believes finds her monstrous, due to her handicap. What I loved about Babel was how well fleshed out each of these characters, and their situations, felt as the movie progressed. What I didn't love were the contrivances that tied them all together. Not terribly surprising was the revelation that the American couple are the parents of the California kids; unexplained was how the nanny ever expected them to be home in time for her to get to the wedding, since the pivotal event which stopped their tour dead in its tracks didn't seem to last all that long, making one wonder just how they'd have been able to return in that timeframe anyway. By the same token, the idea that both the parents and the children would go through such life-changing traumas at the same time, thousands of miles apart, stretched my credulity past the breaking point.

Making up for the improbable synchronicities of the plot, though, were the insights into Japanese, North African and Mexican culture provided by each of the threads. At times the immersive quality of those scenes rivaled the best of John Sayles, which of course is high praise coming from me. As the title suggests, part of the context for Babel is that of language, and the barriers we erect by having so many of them. (And all because those ancient ninnies were building their tower up to Heaven, or however that fable goes.) I expected more to be made of that angle, though. Perhaps a key turning point where one character has to find a way to be understood by another to save a life, or alternatively some misunderstanding that sends the story in an unexpected direction? Instead, I was rather disappointed in that regard, as not that much was made of it. There were some subtle examples, like the struggle of the Japanese girl to express herself without the power of speech, or the fact that the Mexican au pere had provided her charges with such flawless comprehension of Spanish that she could speak it exclusively around them with no loss of communication whatsoever. But in the end I was left scratching my head as to why the choice had been made for that particular title. (On the other hand, kudos to the film-makers for using the original languages, with sub-titles, instead of having everyone speak English!)

All of the acting is top-notch, although Cate Blanchett wasn't given much to work with. As the victim of a thoughtless and meaningless crime, she's incapacitated for much of the time, providing a flashpoint to the proceedings but very little in the way of character development. She's lost a baby recently, and she's mad at her husband, but that's about all we know. Her situation actually highlights one of the understated - but clearly felt - commentaries of Babel, which is the inequity between the cultures shown. Blanchett's character is shot and taken to a nearby village in search of a doctor, any doctor. While there, the abject poverty all around them doesn't seem to penetrate Brad Pitt's frantic husband character, as he attempts to move Heaven and Earth to save this white woman of his in a town where locals undoubtedly die routinely from the harshness of the lifestyle. What makes her life more important than theirs? The fact that she's American, apparently.

Some of the questions left unanswered bother me, which is either a bad sign or a good one. What did the deaf-mute Chieko write in her note to the detective? At one point it seemed like it was a suicide note, and yet she didn't kill herself. Why did her mother end her own life? What was it that the American wife was never going to forgive her husband for? The lack of closure with these and other topics left me unsatisfied, at least a little.

I liked Babel but couldn't quite love it. Vicki commented that she dreamed about the movie last night, and woke up thinking about it. I think it's the sort of film that will grow on me over time, and possibly sit better with me on a second viewing. For now, though, it's only earning a 3-star result.

Rating: ***