Film review by Colin Fraser BABEL |
Several seemingly disconnected stories tell a gloabl tale of fear, anxiety and grief from Morocco to Mexico and Japan. | score 5 |
moviereview rates films from 5 (unmissable) to 1 (unwatchable) |
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Cast Cate Blanchette, Brad Pitt, Koji Yakusho, Adriana Brazza, Gael Garcia Bernal Director Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu Screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga, Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu Country USA Rating / Running Time MA / 141 minutes Australian Release December 2006 Official Site (c) moviereview
2006
ABN 72 775 390 361 |
This
ambitious tale of suffering takes its cue from the Biblical tower that visited
confusion on Earth. Inarritu’s trilogy concludes with an epic production that
teases out human frailty and despair in the 21st century. His now
familiar construct of crossing narratives, characters and timelines builds a traumatic
emotional drama built on the carelessness of seemingly unrelated incidents. An
American tourist (Blanchette at her most refined) falls victim when a rifle
drops into the foolish hands of a Moroccan goat-herder. Critically wounded, she
and her husband (Pitt’s strongest performance to date) are stranded in the
desert as politics rage around them. Back home their children are safe until a Mexican
carer takes them south for her son’s wedding. In Japan a deaf-mute adolescent
is struggling with the recent suicide of her mother. Anxiety has gone global. The
apparent disconnection of these stories, revealed in a jagged frame, create a butterfly
effect that gets to the heart of grief, loss and confusion. Big themes in a
reduced world where hot terror and cold modernity have come to shape our lives.
As frightful events pile up largely for want of a strong head, fear and discord
take wondrous shape. As you might expect from the makers of Amores Perros and 21 Grams, Babel is a
truly harrowing experience. Distinguished by formidable talent at every level,
this is an extraordinary and quite astonishing triumph. If justice prevails, it
will garner plaudits well beyond the Best Director award Inarritu won at Cannes
this year. Foremost Babel is a stark
yet simple assertion that, like those who dared challenge Heaven, divided we
fall. // COLIN FRASER |