Paramount Classics

present

Movie: BABEL (English, Japanese, Spanish, Arabic)
Director: ALEJANDRO GONZALEZ INNARITU
Year: 2006
Country: America
Genre: Drama
Cast: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Gael Garcia Bernal, Rinko Kikuchi, Adriana Barraza
Duration: 2h 20m (app)

’Babel’ – the word signifies “confusion of sounds or voices”. With its numerous well-known actors, many demographic languages, many languages - the director has made sure to put in the obvious influences of all his previous movies which doesnt cause much confusion but pivots the decision of the overall quality of the movie.

Three Stories, one referring to the Brad Pitt-Cate Blanchett couple, another the adolescent sensuousness of the Japanese girl Cheiko, and the part of the brothers in the barren lands of Egypt who kick off the story are brought together as an incident chances their unknown meeting. If you say, this theme looks familiar – of Course…you got it. As ‘Amores Perros’(made in spanish) struck the cinedom with the novel attempt of showing how one accident that intersected into 3 different lives, Alejandro wanting to have more piece of the cake shifted base to America doing ’21 Grams’ with famed stars and a manipulative screenplay of ‘Amores Perros’.

With ‘Babel’ he returns to his den again telling stories that run parallel to each other in his same vintage way. Now, coming to the review of Babel, there is no question of his direction. The only thing that holds together this movie despite the redundancies is this awesome craft he put into building the movie.

But the greatest drawback and where the movie fails so miserably is in its emphasis. In ‘Amores Perros’, the different lives that falter/revive as the movie proceeds after the accident is so beautifully emphasized with respect to each, while ‘Babel’ refuses to move forward in the story’s characterization. A simple story with a such a screenplay could have helped if the aspect of reminiscence was not noticed.

However despite all these drawbacks one can never put ‘Babel’ away as just passable. Its got technical content and can definitely be enjoyed for the 2 hours of its watching. The screenplay shifts from one part to another in a smooth fashion, the periodic changes in tones of loudness….especially the switches from the desert to the mexican city and the Japanese cities is pretty exciting. But the necessity to suddenly get internal to the deaf-mute girl’s character by the periodic mutes in the disco scene doesn’t help.

The music plays along and supports the movie well. But the winner is definitely the director Alejandro Gonzales, with his crafty way of handling all the sequences amply complemented by the camerawork of Rodrigo Prieto. The exhilaratingly rustic visuals of Mexico and Tazarine(Egypt) are a treat to watch. All the actors fit their supporting roles pretty well. Special mention to Adriana Barraza and probably Rinko Kikuchi because she seemed to have got the most scenes in the movie.

‘Babel’ stands forward as a cocktail that has been tasted, in fact served by Alejandro himself. The service was wonderful but it’s the content that matters to the consumer. PROS
Direction

CONS
Obvious influences from movies Amores Perros, 21 Grams, Crash etc.

COMMENTS
Mr.Alejandro, you might be an expert in visualizing parallel stories, but that doesn’t need you to keep doing only that!.

TAGLINE
Too many movies – Babel.

GRADING
Direction: B+
OVERALL: B

RATING: 7.4 / 10.0