Cover your ears and listen to the
Babel
ing.
In
Babel
, Alejandro González Iñárritu (
21 Grams
) creates a commanding masterpiece, the pain of his characters creating ripples felt around the globe. At the heart of
Babel
is not the confusion created between people by different languages but the separation caused by varying perspectives and identities in the world.
Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi) is a deaf-mute Japanese teenager. Cut off by her disability from normal social interactions and reeling from the discovery of her mother's suicide, she
***image1***
adopts the identity of a raging untouchable. Convinced that people see her as a freak, she desperately throws herself at men, viciously resisting her father's love and support.
The ever-compelling Cate Blanchett plays Susan, who is married to Richard (Brad Pitt). The two take a vacation to Morocco after the death of their youngest of three children. Estranged and harboring frustration with each other, the two find closure when forced to communicate after Susan is accidentally shot by a young Moroccan herder. The threat of death exiling all pretense, they honestly share their emotions with each other. Iñárritu drives home the concept that separation is not necessarily a product of different languages by portraying Susan and Richard's fellow tourists as selfish and self-serving, eventually abandoning the tragedy-ridden couple.
Unable to find anyone to baby-sit, Richard and Susan allow Amelia (Adriana Barraza) to take their two living children with her to her son's wedding in Mexico. On their way home, her drunk nephew Santiago (Gael García Bernal) runs from the border patrol and abandons his aunt and the children in the desert. Though she speaks fluent English, Amelia's Mexican heritage prevents her from successfully pleading her case, and her life, as she knows it, is destroyed by others' perceptions of what has befallen her.
While Chieko, Susan and Richard begin the film with feelings of self-hatred, it is the Moroccan herder, his brother, and Richard and Susan's nanny, Amelia, who come to hate themselves. Aptly put by Amelia: "I'm not bad, I've just done a stupid thing," for which she and her children are condemned while their Anglo counterparts are redeemed.
The two Moroccan brothers share a similar fate of miscommunication. Reporters around the globe spread the message from the American government that the incident against Susan is an act of terrorism. The young boys, given no chance to explain their mistake, are plastered as terrorists across the world, their lives shattered.
Iñárritu smartly starts the film with Amelia and the two Moroccan brothers, placing their storylines well ahead of the others. In this way, one is endeared to their plight before becoming distracted by the other storylines, a poignant choice considering it is these characters' lives that travel full circle from peace to ruin.
The film wraps up its well-plotted course by ending with Chieko and her father (Kôji Yakusho), an appropriate choice being that his
***image2***
guns sparked not only the suicide of Chieko's mother but also Susan's accident.
Each character is brilliantly showcased, and even the small roles are given good face by Iñárritu. In an instant, he effortlessly endears character after character to the audience, while the leads portrayed by Pitt, Barraza, Kikuchi and the entire Moroccan cast are riveting in their suffering.
The use of language in
Babel
is unprecedented, weaving Arabic, Spanish, Japanese, English, French and silence in a sublimely meaningful package. Amelia talks to Susan and Richard's children in Spanish, signifying her strong connection to them and their deep understanding of her. When Chieko goes to a club, one is struck by the force of what her eyes witness from her deaf perspective. As the scene cuts between the nightclub with and without sound, it becomes clear that her silent perspective contains a vivid clarity that the scene, otherwise clouded by booming music, does not. If only humanity could see one another with such lucidity.
