Film Reviews

Babel

• Rating:
• Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu.
• Starring: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchet, Gael Garcia Bernal, Boubker Ait El Caid.
• Details: US / Mexico / 142mins (15).

21 Grams and Amores Perros director Inarritu manages to keep the kettle boiling throughout his multi-character story despite the overlong running time. The title is taken from the biblical tale of God's vengeance on the world after mankind has the audacity to build a tower to the heavens. As punishment, God separates the human race into different races and languages making communication difficult and this is the theme of the film. The story kicks off in Morocco when a sheepherder gives his new rifle to his two young sons to ward off jackals. When messing around on the mountainside, one of the boys shoots at a passing bus, hitting American tourist Susan (Blanchet), on holiday with her husband Richard (Pitt).Back home in the States, this incident puts their housekeeper Amelia (Adriana Barraza) in a situation: she was supposed to go to her son's wedding in Mexico and, when she can't find a babysitter to take care of their children for the day, she is forced to illegally take them across the border. At the same time in Japan, a deaf teenage girl, struggling with the recent death of her mother, seeks attention from her father - an amateur hunter and the original owner of the rifle that shot Susan. Inarritu has an uncanny talent for keeping a story going even during the quieter moments and Babel is another example of his perpetual motion plots. Where Inarritu struggles to keep his stories together is the Japanese episode, which is tied into the others with a resounding clunk. Inarritu and his writer Guillermo Arriaga didn't really have to tie in everything and could have kept them apart as stand alone stories with similar themes. This is where the film falls down - that and the bum-numbing 142mins. But it's not the story that stands out this time around -it's the acting. Pitt, Blanchet, El Caid and Barraza leave us wondering what the hell we'd do in the same situation at every turn, and it's this vicariism that gets the viewer involved and onside.

Review by Gavin Burke