MOVIE REVIEW: Babel

There are moments of poetic beauty in Babel: two Moroccan boys standing on a rocky hillside fighting the wind; a deaf Japanese teenager navigating a rave; the dialogue between an American husband and the Moroccan tour guide talking about their families. Moments like these – and many more throughout the film – render these ordinary occurrences without the metaphorical weight that would drag down lesser works. The span of the film is maybe 4 or 5 days linking three stories connected by varying degrees of threadbareness and all involving some form of miscommunication or, perhaps, better viewed as incommunication.

I can understand that some viewers may find the trappings of the film’s conceit to be heavy-handed. I can also see how some may dismiss it all with a shrug. I fall somewhere in between. That these stories exist side by side and do not necessarily overlap is a strength. They all find their momentum without being informed by the other: two boys playing with a new rifle while they should be herding their goats shoot an American women traveling on a tour bus in Morocco; the Mexican caretaker in San Diego needs to travel to Mexico for her son’s wedding; a deaf teenager in Japan deals with her flowering sexuality and the recent death of her mother. The true magic in these stories is that we pick up their lives at the moments we are introduced to them and leave their lives the moment the arc ends. Previous events are hinted at. Fates after the fact are ambiguous. In between the camera of director Alejandro González Iñárritu treats each unfolding tale with such natural evocation of the essence of life, which enchants us with the minutia of a Mexican wedding celebration or the workings in a small Moroccan village.

That these ordinary events are made beautiful is no major feat. Artists of all stripes have acheived this throughout the ages. But to render these ordinary moments with such deftness, respect, clarity and realism is, well, extraordinary.