“Babel” (Paramount Vantage)
A Failure To Communicate
“Babel” is a movie about communication. It tells stories that take place in Morocco, Japan and Mexico. It features an international cast. And it all makes very little sense. The stories, the characters, the events; they are all joined together but they are all disparate. So why should anyone care to watch these stories And the answer is just because.
The main story focuses on a couple named Richard and Susan (Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett). They are on a tour bus in Morocco when Susan is shot in the shoulder. She has been shot by a young boy who is a goat herder in the mountains. He and his brother have been given a rifle by their father to use in killing jackals. But instead they shoot at the bus, and hit Susan.
In the United States Richard and Susan have a Mexican nanny named Amelia (Adriana Barraza) who cares for their two children, Mike and Debbie (Nathan Gamble and Elle Fanning). Amelia has to go to Mexico for her son’s wedding so she is desperate for the parents of the children to get back. Now with Susan shot they are not coming home anytime soon. So Amelia takes the two children to Mexico to the wedding. Her nephew Santiago (Gale Garcia Bernal) drives them there.
In Tokyo a young deaf girl named Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi) is grieving over the death of her mother. She and her father are somewhat estranged. Cheiko seems to need male attention and tries to get it by acting seductive and by being overtly sexual.
All of these situations are dramatic but not particularly interesting or intriguing. None of the characters grab your attention and make you care for them. There are horrific situations involved but the viewer remains strangely remote from them. In each situation there are moments where communication is the obstacle, but once that point is made nothing else is explained fully.
All of the actors in the film are good but not outstanding. Pitt is gray headed and acts distraught but he fails to bring his character to life. Blanchett just moans a lot. Barraza is the best actor in the film but she doesn’t have enough of a backstory to make her character sympathetic.
The movie is rated R for profanity, violence and nudity.
It is annoying to sit through a film and have so little idea of what it was about when it is all over. There are conflicting time frames in the films, notes that seem to be of importance whose contents are never revealed, and unresolved plot points that are still floating out there in the never never once the movie has ended.
The film is titled “Babel” but it could also be called “babble” as it is totally confusing and unresolved. It seems to be trying to make some point of gravitas but its message is missing in the lack of communication. Or maybe that is the message.
I scored “Babel” a baffling 5 out of 10.
