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A
Weave of Lives BABEL:
Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu. Written by Guillermo
Arriaga, based on an idea by González Iñárritu and Arriaga.
Cinematography, Rodrigo Prieto. Music, Gustavo Santaolalla. Starring
Cate Blanchett, Brad Pitt, Gael García Bernal, Adriana Barraza,
Rinko Kikuchi, Kôji Yakusho, Boubker Ait El Caid, Said Tarchani
and others. Paramount Vantage, 2006. R. 142 minutes. Best Director award,
Festival de Cannes 2006.
Director Alejandro González Iñárritu is probably most known, after three feature films, for the twisting, intricately linked narratives that run through his work. From Amores Perros (2000) through 21 Grams (2003) and now the sprawling, affecting Babel, the director ties people together by often tragic threads, linking, in Amores Perros, a famous model to a misguided young man making money off illegal dogfights. In Babel, the connections are stretched across the globe. A nanny takes her Californian charges across the border to Mexico; a deaf-mute Japanese girl, grieving over her mother's death, tries to connect with every man she meets; two families in Morocco, one native, one tourist, suffer after one tragic event. But simpler and often more striking than his complex storytelling is González Iñárritu's sympathetic and unflinching eye for the difficult, the painful to watch, the lure of a taut image of pain or brutality. Never manipulative but always compelling, González Iñárritu films things we don't want to look at. In Amores Perros, distressing, wrenching scenes of dogfighting were harder to bear than human violence. In 11'09"01, a little-seen collection of international short films centered on 9/11, González Iñárritu's spare offering consisted of a black screen, lit briefly and terribly by images of bodies falling from the World Trade Center and set to a soundtrack of distress calls and strange audio. It was horrifying, and it was riveting. In Babel, the director (with his collaborator, writer Guillermo Arriaga) again creates feelings as much as he tells stories. The difficult-to-watch images become more personal: A small boy sobs in a desert; a teenager licks her horrified dentist; a tourist rests in a moment so quiet, so extended, that tension builds before the moment is violently shattered. Through visual richness, a haunting soundtrack and outstanding performances, González Iñárritu considers lives affected by misunderstanding, by consequence, and by politics — though this last piece wisely plays a smaller (and less satisfying) role in what are, despite their globe-spanning connections, intimate, family-centric dramas. As the stories' timelines wrap around each other, some children grow up and find themselves alone, and some adults find themselves faced with the independent creatures that are their children. Underlying these narratives are the cultures and countries in which they take place. These are not stories that unfold in a vacuum, and González Iñárritu's gift for making his locations part of the tale gives Babel much of its richness. Someone is always out of place, but every character's foreignness offers a meaningful perspective, be it that of an American child playing in Mexico, a wounded traveler in Morocco or a young woman (the remarkable Rinko Kikuchi) in a Japanese dance club, overwhelmed by the lights, the people and the music she can't even hear. Rodrigo Prieto's lush, vibrant cinematography shapes the worlds around each character, layering a vivid sense of place into each story — a sense underlined by abrupt leaps from one place to the next that keep us from getting too comfortable. It's an unsettling note of bleak hopefulness on which Babel closes. The film's title evokes the Old Testament tale about a tower to heaven built by a united people. God shattered the tower and created languages to keep the people from collaborating on such a project again. But of course it's more than language that keeps people isolated, and language, in Babel, is an indicator of a deeper gulf. Those who find a way to cross it — whether for their benefit or for the benefit of loved ones — find a different resolution than those who do not. Babel, which closes a thematic trilogy for González Iñárritu, is a global exploration of unexpected connection. Watching its flawed, struggling characters make their way through an unpredictable world is strangely, inexplicably rewarding, but it takes time for the film to sink in. It's time well spent. Babel opens Friday, Nov. 10 at the Bijou
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