Babel
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Movie Reviews of Babel
Movie Review: See BABEL. Reflect, meditate, be concerned. It is a GREAT Film.
Summary: 5 Stars
I found BABEL to be hypnotic to the point that I wanted to see much more, and more. It touches not only your heart but also all the senses in your body and it will make you think twice about humanity.
EVOCATIVE! COMMANDING! DISTURBING! THOUGHTFUL! MARVELOUS! Babel is as close to a masterwork as you can get. Delicate elements of cinema are used harshly and sensibly; the music is HAUNTING, the actors are utterly compelling and every single one of them - stars or not - is brilliant. The story is universal and timely. We the people of this wonderful global community need each other. Every single one of us matters and are responsible for what is going on across the earth. Slowly we are melting into ONE, regardless of space or culture - regardless of our desires or stubbornness. Babel shows us how judgmental and irrational people can be, how innocence is lost and violence is present in every aspect of our life.
I loved how Iñárritu touched upon power and authority. Babel spans different cultures from various parts of the world and the authorities are extremely dissimilar. Just pay attention to the Moroccan Police Squad, the Japanese detectives and the United States border patrol. Amazing what you will discover, and it is up to you how will you interpret it. The sexual awakening of the characters, Amelia's sensible kiss at the wedding of her son, Yuseff's father's reaction to the shocking news and the "walk of desperation" in the hot California desert will never leave my psyche. It is etched there forever like any major event in my life.
Once in a great while we have a film that stands out from the rest, that is not only artistic and emotionally trenchant, but also goes beyond our expectations. BABEL holds up a large mirror for all of us to gaze in and understand who we really are.
Babel is a hymn to humanity, it is an elegy to our ONEness and interdependency.
Movie Review: It Is Indeed A Small World
Summary: 5 Stars
Interesting how a single rifle shot can start a staggering chain of events with international ramifications. The shot was not fired with malice, nor with evil intent, but with carelessness; yet the response is a series of mixed signals, misinformation, and definitely miscommunication. Using the Tower of Babel as rich allegory, director Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu (try saying that three times in a row) tells a powerful story of confusion and cultural conflict in his compelling film BABEL.
Here four totally separate (or so we first believe) stories play out simultaneously, on three continents. An American couple (Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett) is vacationing in western Africa when they fall victim to a bizarre incident; a farmer and shepherd (Mustapha Rachidi), trying to eek out a living in the Moroccan desert, sends his two young sons out to protect his goat heard, and gives them a rifle to protect the livestock from predators. Meanwhile, the American couple's nanny (Adriana Barraza) makes a most unfortunate decision to take the couple's two children from San Diego into Mexico to attend a wedding; while in Japan, a deaf-mute teenage girl (Rinko Kikuchi) is having a most difficult time coming to grips with the recent death of her mother--even while authorities are searching for her businessman father (Koji Yakusho) to question him for a shooting that occurred in western Africa.
Inarritu (with the astute help of writer Guillermo Arriago) weaves these stories together until the viewer understands the confusion, the miscommunication--the cultural disconnect. And his cast is superb: Pitt and Blanchett are outstanding, while the young Kikuchi appears in one of the film's most eye-opening scenes. BABEL is anything but a "feel good" movie, but for viewers looking for a complex story compelling them to think, this is it.
"If you want to be understood. . .listen."
--D. Mikels, Author, Walk-On
Movie Review: globalized greek tragedy
Summary: 5 Stars
With Babel director Alejando Gonzalez Iñárritu completes his trilogy begun with Amores Perros and 21 Grams, and demonstrates just how powerful movie-making can be in the hands of an artistic genius. Iñárritu connects four deeply human stories by the tragic and unintended consequences of a random act. In the desert mountains of Morocco, two little boys shoot at a tour bus while playing with a rifle that their father bought to shoot jackals that threatened their goats. In San Diego, Susan and Richard travel to Morocco to heal their marriage but encounter tragedy on a tour bus. In Mexico, the nanny and illegal immigrant Amelia attends her son's wedding but runs afoul of the law when she tries to re-enter the United States. In Tokyo, the deaf and mute teenager Chieko searches for love in all the wrong ways to overcome the fallout of her mother's suicide and her father's emotional distance.
Babel (the title comes from Genesis 11 in the Bible) is a cinematic metaphor for our post-modern, global age, ambitious in scope and layered with multiple themes--family, the collision of cultures, poverty, helplessness before state power and petty bureaucrats, human estrangement, misinformation and miscommunication, international terrorism, and fate. Every component of this film--sound track (including an unforgettable scene in a Tokyo disco when the pounding music goes silent in order to simulate Chieko's deafness), scenery, narrative, and cinematography--combine for an overwhelming effect. Give your heart and mind to this film and its characters, and you will leave the theater on mental, spiritual, and emotional overload. In Moroccan Arabic, Spanish, Japanese, English, sign language, written notes, cell phone video and text-message, and English sub-titles (so that in many scenes the viewer knows more than the characters who do not or cannot understand what is happening).
Movie Review: I was mesmerized.
Summary: 5 Stars
I don't normally review novies here on Amazon, but had to put in my .02 on this film. I was a little reluctant to watch this movie. I am a marketing exec, wife, mother of two, soccer coach of 7 year olds, part-time student, keeper of dogs and horses. When I sit down to watch a movie it is usually to have something on while I'm folding clothes or to RELAX. I don't want to work too hard when I watch a movie, know what I mean?
This grabbed me, though. The movie is a composite of four interwoven tales, spanning a variety of cultures and life challenges: the American couple on vacation trying to cope with a great loss, the illegal Mexican nanny intent on getting to her son's wedding back in Mexico, two Moroccan sheepherding brothers and their father, the broken teenaged daughter of a wealthy Asian businessman. I don't want to give anything away, so I wont go into plot details- others have given enough spoilers.
I felt very empathetic toward all the chaacters. I felt their emotions as I watched, and I think that is truly what makes this such an excellent film. Sure, you can analyze the characters and plot and find all sorts of themes and lessons. I'll leave that to you. You'll find lots of thought provoking material on what it means to have or have-not, when those times occur that no amount of money can fix things, how sometimes tragedy is so near and we know it, desperately so, and other times we have no idea what we almost lost and didn't. The filmography was amazing and I loved how they played with the timeline, piecing the stories together through interconnected moments.
See it. It is definately worth it. I didn't find it pretentious at all, just very honest. You can certainly just take it for what you see in it. I have to say, one of my favorite movies I've seen in the past year or two.
Movie Review: A tragic tale of understanding
Summary: 5 Stars
"Babel" a packed, strong piece of filmmaking that showcases characters who seek to be understood or to understand. A nanny's right to have love for both her own son and the children she cares for is time and time again obstructed and denied. A boy seeks to understand his place in the world and in the process forgets others. A tourist struggles to get care for his injured wife and emphasize her serious condition while traveling in a foreign country. And finally, a deaf Japanese girl tries to demonstrate her deep love for her dead mother. Everything comes together beautifully, not in an overly manipulative way, but the emotion is raw and the experience for the viewer is unparalled. While the writing and directing is strong, the acting is perfect. Adriana Barazza is extremely moving, while Brad Pitt shows true depth. What Babel turns out being about is the isolation we all experience and the necessity of unity in this confusing world. The nanny struggles alone in a desert and feels trapped between the two cultures of her hometown of Mexico and the culture of America where she illegally lives, but yet feels at home. The boy feels alone in his growing up experience, does something terrible with consequences which he did not comprehend were possible and in the end, must take responsibility himself. The tourist feels the inhabitants of Morrocco don't share the civilization or will necessary to help his wife, while he feels those from his own country don't care enough to help or even wait. The Japanese girl feels the most alone of all. Trying to fit in with her friends, connect with her father and to find love for herself, she realizes she still in love with her mother. Babel is not a fairytale--there are no happy endings. But it begs us to empathize with others (as we are all dealing with pain) and struggle to understand our plights.