Babel Towers Above the Rest

Film: Babel
Cast: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett,
Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

As amazing the existence of so many languages and dialects is, equally startling is the possibilities of miscommunication. Lost in translation is not just a fancy phrase, it is an omnipresent reality. But what if people speaking the same language can still not understand each other? What if the problem lies in understanding the person and not the language?

A poor goat herder in the Morroccon dessert buys a gun so that his sons can keep the jackals away from the grazing goats. One act of childhood indiscretion and an American tourist Susan (Blanchett) is shot. In the middle of nowhere she bleeds while her husband Richard (Pitt) tries to get his embassy to cut the red tape faster and get medical aid across.

An ocean away a Mexican nanny cannot find anyone to take care of the American children under her care, while she pops over the border to attend her only son’s wedding. An act of desperation sees her taking them along. Another ocean away, a deaf-mute Japanese teenager struggles with being considered a misfit and also with her awakening sexuality.

Cate Blanchett is excellent as expected, while Brad Pitt simply blows you away. They are the marquee names. But it is the others, the ones we have never heard of, who stun you with their acting, leaving at least a lump in your throat.

The performance he extracts from his characters is Inarritu’s biggest achievement. That is not to say that his collaboration with screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga is any less. Arriaga’s narrative moves seamlessly across continents and periods. The only slightly less cohesive section is the Japanese chapter, but you can forgive him that because it is the most moving. Inarritu sets his own pace and makes us toe to it. At 142-minutes this is longer than most Hollywood offerings.

Babel may be one of the best movies we get to see this year, but it is not for everyone. If you think this is a pessimistic film, so be it. Real life seldom is all about optimism. At the end of Babel you will realise through all that babel one voice screams through – it is the voice of humanity. Unfortunately no one seems to be listening.