After Crash won the Best Picture Oscar in 2006, "important" films that deliver their messages through multiple, interconnected, stories became the "in" thing in Hollywood. Crash was the first film, Babel is another one, and even Tom Cruise has his own version, Lions for Lambs, which comes out later this year. So far, these films (of course, Babel included) have closely followed some rules:
1) Rely heavily on coincidences. 2) Have a story that will make you feel terrible about yourself, only to realize it's OK to commit sins, "because we're only human beings". 3) Have an A-lister (Brad Pitt) crying and/or cursing and/or shouting. 4) Apparently, they must have a scene that will cause huge, unintentional laughter (In Babel, it was Pitt making out with a near-dead Cate Blanchett who had just peed her pants).
Babel's intent was to show us the disastrous results of bad (or lack of) communication between people from different cultures. The different stories were set in Japan, Mexico, and Morocco. And that's where the film starts to falter. I felt only the Japan section served the story, the other two, not so much. The Mexico segment was unfocused and took too much time to get going (a good 15-20 minutes could've been easily trimmed), while the Moroccan one was unbelievable for the most part. Maybe that's why I only felt emotionally connected to the deaf-mute Japanese girl (played by Oscar nominee Rinko Kikuchi). I couldn't care less about the other characters.
Babel is the concluding chapter of director Alejandro González Iñárritu's "Death Trilogy", after Amores Perros and 21 Grams. Iñárritu has definitely improved as a director. Take the scenes in the Southern California desert for instance. They had an excellent raw and gritty feel to them. The Japan scenes, on the other hand, were suitably cold and depressing. Iñárritu was also able to get amazing performances from the majority of his big cast. But unfortunately, the story, structure, and pacing all failed him.
So, I wouldn't really recommend Babel, unless you're a movie buff who likes to watch all the films nominated for best picture. If you're just looking for an entertaining, or a really well made flick, I'm afraid you should look somewhere else.
1) Rely heavily on coincidences. 2) Have a story that will make you feel terrible about yourself, only to realize it's OK to commit sins, "because we're only human beings". 3) Have an A-lister (Brad Pitt) crying and/or cursing and/or shouting. 4) Apparently, they must have a scene that will cause huge, unintentional laughter (In Babel, it was Pitt making out with a near-dead Cate Blanchett who had just peed her pants).
Babel's intent was to show us the disastrous results of bad (or lack of) communication between people from different cultures. The different stories were set in Japan, Mexico, and Morocco. And that's where the film starts to falter. I felt only the Japan section served the story, the other two, not so much. The Mexico segment was unfocused and took too much time to get going (a good 15-20 minutes could've been easily trimmed), while the Moroccan one was unbelievable for the most part. Maybe that's why I only felt emotionally connected to the deaf-mute Japanese girl (played by Oscar nominee Rinko Kikuchi). I couldn't care less about the other characters.
Babel is the concluding chapter of director Alejandro González Iñárritu's "Death Trilogy", after Amores Perros and 21 Grams. Iñárritu has definitely improved as a director. Take the scenes in the Southern California desert for instance. They had an excellent raw and gritty feel to them. The Japan scenes, on the other hand, were suitably cold and depressing. Iñárritu was also able to get amazing performances from the majority of his big cast. But unfortunately, the story, structure, and pacing all failed him.
So, I wouldn't really recommend Babel, unless you're a movie buff who likes to watch all the films nominated for best picture. If you're just looking for an entertaining, or a really well made flick, I'm afraid you should look somewhere else.