BABEL

Tyler: lllll

It is only rarely that a five star movie is made, totalling maybe a handful each decade. Babel forms part of a masterful body of work of the Mexican Indian film director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, who has placed himself as one the most relevant film directors alive. In the tradition of Amores Perros and 21 Grams, Gonzalez Inarritu crafts a challenging and insightful view of human existence as defined by the distinctions of space, time, class and language. Not limiting himself to a traditional movie structure, Inarritu utilizes distinct cinematographic tools to phrame the story. While Amores Perros is divided into consecutive stories of life in Mexico city, connected by the parallel lives of dogs, 21 Grams is composed as a collage of chronologically scattered scenes, Babel symultaneously relates three stories across different corners of the world. Although there are slight manipulations of time, the main structure of Babel is defined by the relationship and contrasts of the stories across space.

One of the most notable features of the film is the use of visual and sonic tools to maximize the experience of each story from the perspective of the characters. The story in Japan for example, centers around a teenage deaf-mute girl, whose condition provides her a unique yet isolating position. The film depends on the expressiveness of her face and a variety of tools to effectively narrate this story. In a different corner of the world, two competitive brothers set out to shoot at jackals, yet after naively shooting at a bus of European and American tourists, they unleash a devastating set of events. The recently scarred American couple (Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett) will have to hold on to their lives and each other in the remote corners of Morrocco. Perhaps most moving for me given my Latin American background, is the story of an honest and humble Mexican immigrant (Adriana Barraza) who decides to take the two white children she has babysitted since they were born south of the border with her nephew (Gael Garcia Bernal). While shocking from a practical legal point of view, the necessity to be at her son's wedding and the understanding that she is merely travelling a few hours to see her family may make her much more sympathetic for the audience. The profoundly raw and traumatic experiences of the different characters not only creates a beautiful dramatic tapestry, but more importantly, come together to reveal shocking similarities and interconnections between them.

To conclude, Babel is a carefully and masterfully well crafted piece of work. It brings exceptional actors to remarkeable levels of realistic expressionism. Although the style of the film is inherenlty raw, the use of light, color and sound allows the audience to perceive the experiences of the characters in uniquely intimate and moving ways. Once again, Gonzalez Inarritu has provided his audiences not only a great film, but a new perspective of expressing human life through the art of film.

- Tyler Paris.