Dear God. That dirge that played in the last 15 minutes made me want to shoot myself.Movielover wrote:I should think Santolalla will safely take home the Oscar for Score.
Babel reviews
"...it is the weak who are cruel, and...gentleness is only to be expected from the strong." - Leo Reston
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
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Movielover
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Saw this movie this afternoon and it was every bit as brilliant as I thought it would be. I, for one, love Amores Perros - think it's nailbiting filmmaking at its best. 21 Grams was a good film - not a great one. And this is closer to Amores Perros in style - it's not as good, but it comes close.
I know people who have seen it and no one seems to understand why the Japanese story is here (is the final image alone not reason enough - that must be the single most stunning minute of filmmaking made in the last ten years - it makes the most glorious moment of Brokeback Mountain look like cheesecake). I think it adds a great dimension to the notion of isolation and miscommunication. These people are speaking in English, Japanese, Arabic, Spanish, sign language and NO ONE seems to be really connecting with anyone else. The only moment any real emotion is being transcended between two people is when father and daughter embrace, the father wearing the day's responsibilities on his sleeve returning from work, being the adult he is - and the daughter as dressed as innocently as the day she was born, needing a parent to care for her more than ever, vulnerable as a newborn.
I know people are interpreting this as though it were four stories, but for me it was three stories - with one of the stories having a Part A and a Part B. I know it's just semantics.
I love reading the comments other people have had on here. I should think Santolalla will safely take home the Oscar for Score. I'd like to think the Cinematography will slide in there as well, but there were some shots in The Queen that I think may sway things that way, and of course Flags of Our Fathers will no doubt be a threat. I'm not sure if it will get nominated for Picture - but Barraza or Kikuchi will be in there for sure. Pitt isn't even a sure thing for me. I just don't think he was the standout.
I know people who have seen it and no one seems to understand why the Japanese story is here (is the final image alone not reason enough - that must be the single most stunning minute of filmmaking made in the last ten years - it makes the most glorious moment of Brokeback Mountain look like cheesecake). I think it adds a great dimension to the notion of isolation and miscommunication. These people are speaking in English, Japanese, Arabic, Spanish, sign language and NO ONE seems to be really connecting with anyone else. The only moment any real emotion is being transcended between two people is when father and daughter embrace, the father wearing the day's responsibilities on his sleeve returning from work, being the adult he is - and the daughter as dressed as innocently as the day she was born, needing a parent to care for her more than ever, vulnerable as a newborn.
I know people are interpreting this as though it were four stories, but for me it was three stories - with one of the stories having a Part A and a Part B. I know it's just semantics.
I love reading the comments other people have had on here. I should think Santolalla will safely take home the Oscar for Score. I'd like to think the Cinematography will slide in there as well, but there were some shots in The Queen that I think may sway things that way, and of course Flags of Our Fathers will no doubt be a threat. I'm not sure if it will get nominated for Picture - but Barraza or Kikuchi will be in there for sure. Pitt isn't even a sure thing for me. I just don't think he was the standout.
This isn't a movie about miscommunication. It's about a series of incredibly stupid, bone-headed, dumbass decisions, starting with the decision to make this movie in the first place. Really, the last time I can recall such a collection of brain-dead numbskulls is when the Minnow set sail on a three-hour tour.
I say this with all due respect: I'm appalled that any rational thinking person could take this overwraught, ridiculous, sadistic, mysogonistic tripe seriously. My usual Saturday night gang hated this flick even more than Running with Scissors, and that's saying quite a bit--it was an absolute chore to sit through.
I say this with all due respect: I'm appalled that any rational thinking person could take this overwraught, ridiculous, sadistic, mysogonistic tripe seriously. My usual Saturday night gang hated this flick even more than Running with Scissors, and that's saying quite a bit--it was an absolute chore to sit through.
"...it is the weak who are cruel, and...gentleness is only to be expected from the strong." - Leo Reston
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
Mister Tee wrote:...the Tokyo sequences...For me...it was my favorite part of the movie.
I was thinking the same thing.
Thank you for your insights, they brought the film into a much better focus for me.
I agree with your summation, Adriana Barraza and Rinko Kikuchi really are the stand-outs. I knew nothing about Kikuchi or her character and walking out of the theatre yesterday I honestly thought that she was deaf in real life.
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Mister Tee
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Well, I'll take the contrary position. (I'll no doubt cite details in doing it, so, if you're plot-point- shy, cease reading)
Let me preface with a few things: I was never crazy about Amores Perros -- hated the dog under the floorboards, didn't much care for dogs mauling one another, either; in general thought it was more flashy than particularly impressive. I thought 21 Grams had top drawer performances, but, once you reordered the scrambled time sequence, what remained was a run-of-the-mill 40s melodrama -- which is fine, just not as IMPORTANT as the filmmakers seemed to suggest. (I should add I'm by now fairly sick of the whole time-scramble shtik; I find it being used more and more by mediocre talents in imitation of films they've liked but can't hope to match) Finally, inevitably, I've noted the critical divide on Babel, and, seeing the names on each side of this split (and noting my respect/lack thereof for those in each camp), I had every reason to believe this would not be my sort of film.
Possibly all this created a lower expectation-bar for it to clear in my mind. All I can tell you is, as we used to say in college, the film worked for me. I found it far and away the best of the Inarritu/Arriaga collaborations, and, in the end, very moving.
One big reason: the scrambled-time thing isn't used the way it is in alot of other recent films. It's not there to create artificial suspense or confusion (two of the story connections are established right away, and the third isn't made a big deal); there are no meant-to-induce-gasps reversals engineered by the rearrangement. The in-effect four separate stories are presented the way they are -- slightly off in time -- simply because it's the best way for each of them to rise (and reach crescendo) in tandem. And though there are character/incident connections among the four stories -- the Tokyo connection clearly more tangential than the others -- the segments are best viewed as utterly separate narratives unified not by plot, but by theme ...which is to say, the antecedent is not Pulp Fiction, but Intolerance (making no quality analogy, just a structural one).
I thought this method had power because the themes resonated. The overriding theme, as suggested by the title, is of course miscommunication. The trailer leads one to expect a particular sort: the distance created by language barrier. The surprise is how Inarritu and Arriaga avoid this obvious choice -- in fact go out of their way to eliminate it as the source of conflict. Pitt's biggest problems are with his own embassy and the irritating Brit (an overwrought character, I acknowledge); the Moroccan father and children get incorrect information about Blanchett's fate from their own tribe; the Mexican border confrontation is in mutual English (and the patroller who nabs Barrraza is even himself Hispanic); and Chieko makes it clear she could communicate easily if people simply spoke more slowly and were willing to read. The miscommunication is thus not an endemic thing; it arises from people's cultivated prejudices, and, more, their simple unwillingness to take the ime to actually hear what others are saying.
But they don't take the time: the sub-theme here is, they run away. Blanchett literally accuses Pitt of the tactic; Chieko implies her father does the same; and, in the other two stories, there's physical flight that leads to catastrophic results -- results that might have been avoided had people been willing to stop and talk things out rationally.
Why they don't is, I think, the film's third and most powerful theme: that the root of all this miscommunication is in the family unit. All the stories are brim-full of familial conflicts: Pitt and Blanchett agonize over the loss of one child, and in the process virtually abandon the others; the Moroccan father, with his pride in his more gifted son, encourages a sibling rivalry that leads to traegedy; Barazza struggles to please both the children to whom she's been virtual mother and her own biological child (plus she deals with a wild-child nephew on the side); and Chieko's father, caught up in his own grief over losing his wife, neglects his daughter till she almost literally goes over the edge.
Some of these stories are, certainly, fatalistically approached. The Mexico segment in particular has a "the day went inexorably to hell" aspect (though I was pleased it didn't end with dead children in the desert), and the Morocco story is tragic indeed. But I don't think the story sinks into melodrama, because none of the people involved here are really bad -- they take what are, to them, logical, or at least unexceptionable, actions; they just happen to lead to disaster. The same is true in, say, The Bicycle Thief, which I believe is still thought of as a great movie. Yeah, the film has a bummer aspect to it; don't go in looking to cheered up. But I think it also has the redemptive power of art.
Above all, it has the Tokyo sequences. This part of the film is likely to be the acid test for one's opinion on the film. If you think, this section has really nothing to do with anything else in the film, and that bothers you, you probably won't care for the film. For me, on the other hand, it was my favorite part of the movie. It takes all the themes dealt with in the rest of the film and explores them in an almost abstract manner: Chieko's literal deafness pushes the miscommunication idea as far as it can go; makes all the petty confusions the other characters suffer seem small by comparison. The alternately loud/then silent disco scene was a high-risk moment that I thought really paid off -- first illustrating by stark contrast the world Chieko experiences with the one the rest of us take for granted; then, just when it seemed the idea was being overstated, isolating on her moment of heartbreak: making it clear that experiencing such a moment -- the person you like suddenly necking with your best friend -- is that much more devastating when experienced without any surrounding noise (babble) for distraction.
And yet this is the section of the film that ends in a moment of grace and perhaps hope. Chieko experiences horrible inner agony, but finally (rather incidentally as a result of the film's triggering event) she's able to get her father to respond. Their final moment together is, for me, a thing of true beauty -- as someone said elsewhere, it looks like a lost image from Blade Runner. (I believe even the film's critics are mostly granting the film some visual beauty -- the flight of Pitt/Blanchett's helipcopter is also a stunner, as are most of the Tokyo skyline shots)
Sabin references Crash, and Samuel L. Jackson has been going around calling the film Crash Benetton -- a glib-ism I don't even quite understand. (Is he suggesting Crash itself wasn't Crash Benetton?) With Sabin I just take it to mean he thinks the film's mediocre, and I, as written above, I disagree, though respectfully. With Jackson, it seems a more pointed put-down. Could he mean there's something wrong with having two well-to-do American tourists as the center of the story? If so, I think he misses Inarritu/Arriaga's meaning. Though, certainly, some pampered Americans will take as their only lesson to avoid third-world vacations, most will note that, though Pitt and Blanchett go through a stressful few days (and Blanchett experiences maybe the most agonizing on-screen moment), in general they come out of the experience unscathed (as the Tokyo anchor-person says in throwaway, "A happy ending for the American tourist couple"). It's the people in their wake who have their lives changed permanently for the worse. I can't help but think this is the filmmaking team's view of America's role in the world right now.
I've probably rambled on too long already, but a few words about the actors: Pitt has alot of opportunities for anguish, and it's possible he'll get a Clooney-like supporting nomination for the film. But, truly, the big names -- he, Blanchett and Bernal -- do subsidiary work. (Though note: Bernal continues to be just as good an actor in English as in Spanish -- something others, like Penelope Cruz, cannot claim) In a way, they've done this movie pro bono: without their presence, the film would seem what is really is -- one filled with unknowns, mostly in subtitles. For me, it's two of those unknowns -- Barazza and Kikuchi -- who do by far the best work in the film. Their Oscar chances probably rest on either critical recognition (NBR more likely than the others) or, more likely, acknowledgement from the Globes (for whom this film ought to be catnip).
Let me preface with a few things: I was never crazy about Amores Perros -- hated the dog under the floorboards, didn't much care for dogs mauling one another, either; in general thought it was more flashy than particularly impressive. I thought 21 Grams had top drawer performances, but, once you reordered the scrambled time sequence, what remained was a run-of-the-mill 40s melodrama -- which is fine, just not as IMPORTANT as the filmmakers seemed to suggest. (I should add I'm by now fairly sick of the whole time-scramble shtik; I find it being used more and more by mediocre talents in imitation of films they've liked but can't hope to match) Finally, inevitably, I've noted the critical divide on Babel, and, seeing the names on each side of this split (and noting my respect/lack thereof for those in each camp), I had every reason to believe this would not be my sort of film.
Possibly all this created a lower expectation-bar for it to clear in my mind. All I can tell you is, as we used to say in college, the film worked for me. I found it far and away the best of the Inarritu/Arriaga collaborations, and, in the end, very moving.
One big reason: the scrambled-time thing isn't used the way it is in alot of other recent films. It's not there to create artificial suspense or confusion (two of the story connections are established right away, and the third isn't made a big deal); there are no meant-to-induce-gasps reversals engineered by the rearrangement. The in-effect four separate stories are presented the way they are -- slightly off in time -- simply because it's the best way for each of them to rise (and reach crescendo) in tandem. And though there are character/incident connections among the four stories -- the Tokyo connection clearly more tangential than the others -- the segments are best viewed as utterly separate narratives unified not by plot, but by theme ...which is to say, the antecedent is not Pulp Fiction, but Intolerance (making no quality analogy, just a structural one).
I thought this method had power because the themes resonated. The overriding theme, as suggested by the title, is of course miscommunication. The trailer leads one to expect a particular sort: the distance created by language barrier. The surprise is how Inarritu and Arriaga avoid this obvious choice -- in fact go out of their way to eliminate it as the source of conflict. Pitt's biggest problems are with his own embassy and the irritating Brit (an overwrought character, I acknowledge); the Moroccan father and children get incorrect information about Blanchett's fate from their own tribe; the Mexican border confrontation is in mutual English (and the patroller who nabs Barrraza is even himself Hispanic); and Chieko makes it clear she could communicate easily if people simply spoke more slowly and were willing to read. The miscommunication is thus not an endemic thing; it arises from people's cultivated prejudices, and, more, their simple unwillingness to take the ime to actually hear what others are saying.
But they don't take the time: the sub-theme here is, they run away. Blanchett literally accuses Pitt of the tactic; Chieko implies her father does the same; and, in the other two stories, there's physical flight that leads to catastrophic results -- results that might have been avoided had people been willing to stop and talk things out rationally.
Why they don't is, I think, the film's third and most powerful theme: that the root of all this miscommunication is in the family unit. All the stories are brim-full of familial conflicts: Pitt and Blanchett agonize over the loss of one child, and in the process virtually abandon the others; the Moroccan father, with his pride in his more gifted son, encourages a sibling rivalry that leads to traegedy; Barazza struggles to please both the children to whom she's been virtual mother and her own biological child (plus she deals with a wild-child nephew on the side); and Chieko's father, caught up in his own grief over losing his wife, neglects his daughter till she almost literally goes over the edge.
Some of these stories are, certainly, fatalistically approached. The Mexico segment in particular has a "the day went inexorably to hell" aspect (though I was pleased it didn't end with dead children in the desert), and the Morocco story is tragic indeed. But I don't think the story sinks into melodrama, because none of the people involved here are really bad -- they take what are, to them, logical, or at least unexceptionable, actions; they just happen to lead to disaster. The same is true in, say, The Bicycle Thief, which I believe is still thought of as a great movie. Yeah, the film has a bummer aspect to it; don't go in looking to cheered up. But I think it also has the redemptive power of art.
Above all, it has the Tokyo sequences. This part of the film is likely to be the acid test for one's opinion on the film. If you think, this section has really nothing to do with anything else in the film, and that bothers you, you probably won't care for the film. For me, on the other hand, it was my favorite part of the movie. It takes all the themes dealt with in the rest of the film and explores them in an almost abstract manner: Chieko's literal deafness pushes the miscommunication idea as far as it can go; makes all the petty confusions the other characters suffer seem small by comparison. The alternately loud/then silent disco scene was a high-risk moment that I thought really paid off -- first illustrating by stark contrast the world Chieko experiences with the one the rest of us take for granted; then, just when it seemed the idea was being overstated, isolating on her moment of heartbreak: making it clear that experiencing such a moment -- the person you like suddenly necking with your best friend -- is that much more devastating when experienced without any surrounding noise (babble) for distraction.
And yet this is the section of the film that ends in a moment of grace and perhaps hope. Chieko experiences horrible inner agony, but finally (rather incidentally as a result of the film's triggering event) she's able to get her father to respond. Their final moment together is, for me, a thing of true beauty -- as someone said elsewhere, it looks like a lost image from Blade Runner. (I believe even the film's critics are mostly granting the film some visual beauty -- the flight of Pitt/Blanchett's helipcopter is also a stunner, as are most of the Tokyo skyline shots)
Sabin references Crash, and Samuel L. Jackson has been going around calling the film Crash Benetton -- a glib-ism I don't even quite understand. (Is he suggesting Crash itself wasn't Crash Benetton?) With Sabin I just take it to mean he thinks the film's mediocre, and I, as written above, I disagree, though respectfully. With Jackson, it seems a more pointed put-down. Could he mean there's something wrong with having two well-to-do American tourists as the center of the story? If so, I think he misses Inarritu/Arriaga's meaning. Though, certainly, some pampered Americans will take as their only lesson to avoid third-world vacations, most will note that, though Pitt and Blanchett go through a stressful few days (and Blanchett experiences maybe the most agonizing on-screen moment), in general they come out of the experience unscathed (as the Tokyo anchor-person says in throwaway, "A happy ending for the American tourist couple"). It's the people in their wake who have their lives changed permanently for the worse. I can't help but think this is the filmmaking team's view of America's role in the world right now.
I've probably rambled on too long already, but a few words about the actors: Pitt has alot of opportunities for anguish, and it's possible he'll get a Clooney-like supporting nomination for the film. But, truly, the big names -- he, Blanchett and Bernal -- do subsidiary work. (Though note: Bernal continues to be just as good an actor in English as in Spanish -- something others, like Penelope Cruz, cannot claim) In a way, they've done this movie pro bono: without their presence, the film would seem what is really is -- one filled with unknowns, mostly in subtitles. For me, it's two of those unknowns -- Barazza and Kikuchi -- who do by far the best work in the film. Their Oscar chances probably rest on either critical recognition (NBR more likely than the others) or, more likely, acknowledgement from the Globes (for whom this film ought to be catnip).
Oh, this thing's going to be nominated for Best Picture. Absolutely. I could see it upsetting 'The Departed' at the Globes for Best Dramatic Picture. There's far too much goodwill from people who don't see how inherently shallow, manipulative, and mean-spirited it is...when was the last time we saw a film like that come out of nowhere and rob superior films? When was...the last time...that something...like that...happened...hmmm?
As of now, I'd be shocked if the film were not nominated for Picture, Director, Supporting Actor for Pitt (none of the performance really can be called good performances, but rather above or below-average histrionics), Original Screenplay, and Film Editing, with Santaolalla's score and Prieto's cinematography not out of the question.
As of now, I'd be shocked if the film were not nominated for Picture, Director, Supporting Actor for Pitt (none of the performance really can be called good performances, but rather above or below-average histrionics), Original Screenplay, and Film Editing, with Santaolalla's score and Prieto's cinematography not out of the question.
"How's the despair?"
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OscarGuy
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Critical response is less than rapturous.
My problem all along with recognizing this film (which in previews looks a helluva lot like Syriana) is that people were so happy to jump on its band wagon but then forget that Inarritu has been favored before and disappointed. 21 Grams was supposed to be his Best Pic nominee presumptively but never made it. Sure he has Amores Perros but it lost the foreign language Oscar to Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. I really think people are foolishly latching on to this pic as a Best Picture hopeful when it seems, buzz-wise, the foreign director most likely to be recognized with a Best Pic nomination is Almodovar, not Inarritu.
My problem all along with recognizing this film (which in previews looks a helluva lot like Syriana) is that people were so happy to jump on its band wagon but then forget that Inarritu has been favored before and disappointed. 21 Grams was supposed to be his Best Pic nominee presumptively but never made it. Sure he has Amores Perros but it lost the foreign language Oscar to Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. I really think people are foolishly latching on to this pic as a Best Picture hopeful when it seems, buzz-wise, the foreign director most likely to be recognized with a Best Pic nomination is Almodovar, not Inarritu.
Wesley Lovell
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"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
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LMAO, Sabin, your Whammy Bear metaphor PERFECTLY describes the experience of watching this film.
Which is not to say I didn't enjoy Babel. As you say, the build in the first hour is superb, and it's electric, thrilling filmmaking. But as the film went on I wondered, like you, how much the film really had to say about any of its high-stakes situations. Plus, I also felt like ultimately, none of the narratives went in as interesting a direction as they might have given their intriguing set-ups (at least directions not already made clear from the film's trailer).
In many ways, I think the film is a lot like Little Children. It's got plenty of terrific moments, (and really, some of the sequences in this film are just superbly done), and a strong cast, but it doesn't really cohere into anything as substantial as it should, coasting on its lofty subject matter but lacking in profundity.
I admire all three of Iñárritu's pictures, but I think I'll go against the grain and say that my favorite so far is his most maligned work, 21 Grams. That film ran out of steam in the last reel, but something about its histrionics feels almost operatic to me, its sense of despair heightened to the most powerful emotional levels. In contrast, I think Babel is a little distant, and the road it travels doesn't feel as grand a journey, despite the continent-hopping this time around.
Which is not to say I didn't enjoy Babel. As you say, the build in the first hour is superb, and it's electric, thrilling filmmaking. But as the film went on I wondered, like you, how much the film really had to say about any of its high-stakes situations. Plus, I also felt like ultimately, none of the narratives went in as interesting a direction as they might have given their intriguing set-ups (at least directions not already made clear from the film's trailer).
In many ways, I think the film is a lot like Little Children. It's got plenty of terrific moments, (and really, some of the sequences in this film are just superbly done), and a strong cast, but it doesn't really cohere into anything as substantial as it should, coasting on its lofty subject matter but lacking in profundity.
I admire all three of Iñárritu's pictures, but I think I'll go against the grain and say that my favorite so far is his most maligned work, 21 Grams. That film ran out of steam in the last reel, but something about its histrionics feels almost operatic to me, its sense of despair heightened to the most powerful emotional levels. In contrast, I think Babel is a little distant, and the road it travels doesn't feel as grand a journey, despite the continent-hopping this time around.
Welcome to Innaritu's third feature, 'Babel' - or as I like to call it 'Whammy Bear: The Movie', wherein every five minutes the screen freezes and a cartoon Whammy Bear (I call this one Sir Whammerson III) pops up and yells out WHAMMY!
(the term 'Whammy!' referring to God kicking you in the nuts)
The Whammy Bear always rears his head in an Innaritu film, and while the first hour of 'Whammy Bear: The Movie' is a very strong build, by far the strongest thing Innaritu has done despite Arriaga's pretensions, ultimately it's all building towards a rapid succession of WHAMMY!s designed to wear on the soul. Sir Whammerson III has a field day with the storylines with Brad Pitt and the Moroccan village, but what he really loves is the ones with The Spanish Maid and The Deaf-Mute-Hairy-Vagged Asian Girl, because all things considered they only involve the story metaphorically. "Who provided the gun" and "Who's taking care of the kids" are good questions to ask, but really these storylines only serve to provide a different flavor of suffering for The Whammy Bear to jizz all over.
And once The Whammy Bear has done all he can with the characters - to be somewhat revealing but ultimately not, there is a "Happy Ending" of sorts, but certainly not on-screen - he's done with them. Characters only live to suffer in 'Whammy Bear: The Movie'. And it seems like some people really enjoy that. Especially because The Whammy Bear begins to address important issues, which is important. But The Whammy Bear is busy, so he really can't finish up in time for the big finale. So, we're left with an "important" movie that really has nothing much to say with characters that really are never allowed any degree of happiness, and if they get some by an unexpected WHAMMY! of roundabout good luck, it's safely locked away off-screen because godforbid we get a well-rounded experience.
ENJOY!
(the term 'Whammy!' referring to God kicking you in the nuts)
The Whammy Bear always rears his head in an Innaritu film, and while the first hour of 'Whammy Bear: The Movie' is a very strong build, by far the strongest thing Innaritu has done despite Arriaga's pretensions, ultimately it's all building towards a rapid succession of WHAMMY!s designed to wear on the soul. Sir Whammerson III has a field day with the storylines with Brad Pitt and the Moroccan village, but what he really loves is the ones with The Spanish Maid and The Deaf-Mute-Hairy-Vagged Asian Girl, because all things considered they only involve the story metaphorically. "Who provided the gun" and "Who's taking care of the kids" are good questions to ask, but really these storylines only serve to provide a different flavor of suffering for The Whammy Bear to jizz all over.
And once The Whammy Bear has done all he can with the characters - to be somewhat revealing but ultimately not, there is a "Happy Ending" of sorts, but certainly not on-screen - he's done with them. Characters only live to suffer in 'Whammy Bear: The Movie'. And it seems like some people really enjoy that. Especially because The Whammy Bear begins to address important issues, which is important. But The Whammy Bear is busy, so he really can't finish up in time for the big finale. So, we're left with an "important" movie that really has nothing much to say with characters that really are never allowed any degree of happiness, and if they get some by an unexpected WHAMMY! of roundabout good luck, it's safely locked away off-screen because godforbid we get a well-rounded experience.
ENJOY!
"How's the despair?"
Peter Travers gives it four stars. At this point, I think we can start the Travers Top Ten. This is the kind of movie he will give four stars to and place high up in his top ten to make, like, a statement, man! 'Bad Education', not so much. He just didn't think 'Bad Education' was quite as good as 'Finding Neverland' or 'Fahrenheit 9/11'. Anyway, here it is, somewhat of interest as it is:
****
The Bible says God was angry when man tried to reach heaven by building a tower (later named Babel); he stopped the work by devising different languages that made understanding impossible. Babel came to mean noise and miscommunication.
Some things never change [they don't, do they Pete; your review is already reductive and obvious]. The gifted Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and his remarkable screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga - this film completes the brilliant trilogy they began with Amores Perros and 21 Grams - have applied the concept of Babel to the way we live now, in a world threatened by terrorism and divided by language, race, money and religion. Heavy going? Not if you want to see something extraordinary. In the year's richest, most complex and ultimately most heartbreaking film, Inarritu invites us to get past the babble of modern civilization and start listening to each other.
His film throws us into the lives of broken families from Morocco to Tokyo, from posh San Diego to the poverty across the Mexican border. The jangle of dialects assaults our ears. Sign language is introduced. Time frames are splintered to add to the disorientation. But pay attention and these parallel lines do meet.
The actors work wonders in guiding us through the maze. Brad Pitt's Richard and Cate Blanchett's Susan are a San Diego couple on a healing trip to Morocco after their baby's death. Their two older kids are home with the maid, Amelia (Adriana Barraza), who defies Richard and the law by letting her firebrand nephew (Gael Garc’a Bernal) drive her and the kids into Mexico for a wedding.
The pivotal event occurs when Susan, on a tour bus with Richard, is shot in the shoulder. The bullet comes from a hunting rifle that a goat herder gave to his sons, one of whom fires wildly at the bus from a hillside. But with Susan bleeding and near death in a remote village and Richard phoning his rage to the U.S. embassy, the shooting is media-hyped into a terrorist incident. The impact stretches to Tokyo, where a father (Koji Yakusho) coping with the suicide of his wife and the promiscuity of his deaf-mute daughter, Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi), finds himself connected to the gun that shot Susan.
There is no way for a review to encompass the beautifully integrated, soul-searching portrait that Inarritu paints of a world in crisis. Pitt, raw and emotionally bruised, gives his most mature and moving performance to date. Cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto brings a poet's eye to the images. Stranded at the Mexican border, a victim of Bush immigration policy, Barraza leaves you shattered. At an ear-busting Tokyo disco, the sound goes dead so we hear only what Chieko hears. Kikuchi is unforgettable, nailing every nuance in her role. Just try to erase the sight of her, standing naked and vulnerable on a high-rise balcony while an uncaring city bustles below. All of Babel is like this – it's impossible to shake.
Edited By Sabin on 1161631289
****
The Bible says God was angry when man tried to reach heaven by building a tower (later named Babel); he stopped the work by devising different languages that made understanding impossible. Babel came to mean noise and miscommunication.
Some things never change [they don't, do they Pete; your review is already reductive and obvious]. The gifted Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and his remarkable screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga - this film completes the brilliant trilogy they began with Amores Perros and 21 Grams - have applied the concept of Babel to the way we live now, in a world threatened by terrorism and divided by language, race, money and religion. Heavy going? Not if you want to see something extraordinary. In the year's richest, most complex and ultimately most heartbreaking film, Inarritu invites us to get past the babble of modern civilization and start listening to each other.
His film throws us into the lives of broken families from Morocco to Tokyo, from posh San Diego to the poverty across the Mexican border. The jangle of dialects assaults our ears. Sign language is introduced. Time frames are splintered to add to the disorientation. But pay attention and these parallel lines do meet.
The actors work wonders in guiding us through the maze. Brad Pitt's Richard and Cate Blanchett's Susan are a San Diego couple on a healing trip to Morocco after their baby's death. Their two older kids are home with the maid, Amelia (Adriana Barraza), who defies Richard and the law by letting her firebrand nephew (Gael Garc’a Bernal) drive her and the kids into Mexico for a wedding.
The pivotal event occurs when Susan, on a tour bus with Richard, is shot in the shoulder. The bullet comes from a hunting rifle that a goat herder gave to his sons, one of whom fires wildly at the bus from a hillside. But with Susan bleeding and near death in a remote village and Richard phoning his rage to the U.S. embassy, the shooting is media-hyped into a terrorist incident. The impact stretches to Tokyo, where a father (Koji Yakusho) coping with the suicide of his wife and the promiscuity of his deaf-mute daughter, Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi), finds himself connected to the gun that shot Susan.
There is no way for a review to encompass the beautifully integrated, soul-searching portrait that Inarritu paints of a world in crisis. Pitt, raw and emotionally bruised, gives his most mature and moving performance to date. Cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto brings a poet's eye to the images. Stranded at the Mexican border, a victim of Bush immigration policy, Barraza leaves you shattered. At an ear-busting Tokyo disco, the sound goes dead so we hear only what Chieko hears. Kikuchi is unforgettable, nailing every nuance in her role. Just try to erase the sight of her, standing naked and vulnerable on a high-rise balcony while an uncaring city bustles below. All of Babel is like this – it's impossible to shake.
Edited By Sabin on 1161631289
"How's the despair?"
Ed "The Apostle" Gonzalez isn't too fond of it:
At the rate Alejandro González Iñárritu and Guillermo Arriaga's philosophy of the world is evolving, their next collaboration might concern the struggles that grip Martians and Venusians. González Iñárritu's new film, his most geographically far flung to date, takes its name from Genesis 11:1-9, in which God spitefully divides a community of people along racial and linguistic lines for arrogantly attempting to build a great tower to heaven. Likewise, Babel hinges on the notion that language is a great divider, giving off the impression that if we all spoke the same tongue, our problems—like immigration and terrorism—might cease to exist. This specious message is easy to latch on to and made overriding by González Iñárritu and Arriaga's strenuous attempts to connect the lives of their characters via photographs, bloody graphic matches, phone conversations, and a have-gun-will-travel angle that brings to mind Anthony Mann's great Winchester '73.
In Morocco, a boy accidentally shoots an American woman, Susan (Cate Blanchett), in the neck from atop a mountain, leaving her husband, Bill (Brad Pitt), to scramble for medical assistance; back in America, Amelia (Adrianna Barraza), takes Susan and Bill's children to Mexico for a wedding but runs into trouble with border police when trying to return to San Diego; and, over in Tokyo, Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi), the deaf-mute daughter of an amateur hunter, Yasujiro (Kôji Yakusho), who sold his rifle to the Moroccan boy's father, begins to unravel after too many boys reject her advances. Chaos hangs thick over the film, which González Iñárritu, fancying himself a great observer, directs with a coolness that oscillates dangerously between self-importance and detachment. After Amores Perros and 21 Grams, you may wonder how many times the director can make the same movie: González Iñárritu definitely has a sensibility, except its strikingly, almost shockingly one-note.
Babel suggests something coming out of the ether—always in a hurry but sometimes dropping clues as to where it's going and where it will end up. Chronology is jumbled as it was in 21 Grams, only this film's fudging of time is slightly less shrill, sometimes even soothing (a phone call received by one of the characters indicates that someone else—far away and close to death—might just turn out okay). In the end, though, it's not the linking devices, however desperate, that cripple the film (and the audience), but the stories themselves, which are jerry-rigged with trite scare tactics meant to elicit tongue-clucking. In Mexico, Amelia's nephew Santiago (Gael García Bernal) shoots a bullet into the air (at which point you wonder if it will ricochet off a taco stand and go through someone's head), but not before he decapitates a chicken, scaring the #### out of Susan and Bill's lily-white son Mike (Nathan Gamble). The film delights in keeping its audience on edge, evoking life as a perpetual roller coaster ride of potential doom and gloom.
Though less histrionic than 21 Grams, Babel rests on the laurels of wafer-thin approximations of real people: We learn close to nothing about Susan and Bill other than that he might have had an affair ("You're never going to forgive me," he says, in response to her violent reaction to his refusal to throw away the ice from his glass of Coca-Cola), thus explaining her tight-assness, and much of the nuance allotted to Barraza and an excellent Kikuchi's characters are isolated almost entirely to the punchlines, so to speak, of their respective storylines. Babel gives us reasons to care about its characters, but only when we're way past forgiving the film's flip storytelling. Comparisons to the vulgar Crash are fair only up to a point, given how Babel is prone to sacrificing character at the altar of the almighty shock tactic, but the film more accurately brings to mind the schematic, globe-trotting Syriana, in which people are cast as pawns in an elaborate game of Risk.
Babel is not entirely without merit. In Morocco, there is great heart to the way natives band together to support Susan, who is tended to by an old woman and, later, a physician who sews up her wound without removing the bullet lodged in her neck. Implicit in the way Susan and Bill are abandoned by their selfish tour group, and the U.S. embassy's delayed rescue of the couple, is how our country's global war on terror has thrown a wrench into our collective humanity. Also, there is the tragic recurring theme of authority figures, both in Morocco and in the United States (where they find Amelia abandoned in the desert with Mike and Debbie, played by Elle Fanning), heartlessly pushing people to all sorts of rash decisions. But most striking is the film's critique of American privilege, the notion of two rich white Californians coming out on top at the expense of the rest of the world's people.
Though there is value to Babel, the filmmakers are careless about it. Commentaries rise to the surface only to dissipate in a cloud of connect-the-dot-isms. Just when you begin to appreciate the film's political perspectives, the filmmakers allow nuance to evaporate as they thrill in showing us how action in one part of the globe resonates in such a way that it affects someone's life thousands of miles away. How sad that the film's strongest storyline is its Tokyo-set one, in which a girl's disconnect from the world of sound causes her great embarrassment and leads her to thoughts of suicide. There is richness not only to Chieko's pain and lashing out but also to the modes of social interaction between this story's characters, yet her tale flimsily connects to the film's other, more high-minded fictions. Why her story doesn't constitute the whole of the film is simple: If it did then González Iñárritu would have been without Blanchett, Pitt, and García Bernal, who together ensure that this ivory tower of a film reaches the Oscar stage.
At the rate Alejandro González Iñárritu and Guillermo Arriaga's philosophy of the world is evolving, their next collaboration might concern the struggles that grip Martians and Venusians. González Iñárritu's new film, his most geographically far flung to date, takes its name from Genesis 11:1-9, in which God spitefully divides a community of people along racial and linguistic lines for arrogantly attempting to build a great tower to heaven. Likewise, Babel hinges on the notion that language is a great divider, giving off the impression that if we all spoke the same tongue, our problems—like immigration and terrorism—might cease to exist. This specious message is easy to latch on to and made overriding by González Iñárritu and Arriaga's strenuous attempts to connect the lives of their characters via photographs, bloody graphic matches, phone conversations, and a have-gun-will-travel angle that brings to mind Anthony Mann's great Winchester '73.
In Morocco, a boy accidentally shoots an American woman, Susan (Cate Blanchett), in the neck from atop a mountain, leaving her husband, Bill (Brad Pitt), to scramble for medical assistance; back in America, Amelia (Adrianna Barraza), takes Susan and Bill's children to Mexico for a wedding but runs into trouble with border police when trying to return to San Diego; and, over in Tokyo, Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi), the deaf-mute daughter of an amateur hunter, Yasujiro (Kôji Yakusho), who sold his rifle to the Moroccan boy's father, begins to unravel after too many boys reject her advances. Chaos hangs thick over the film, which González Iñárritu, fancying himself a great observer, directs with a coolness that oscillates dangerously between self-importance and detachment. After Amores Perros and 21 Grams, you may wonder how many times the director can make the same movie: González Iñárritu definitely has a sensibility, except its strikingly, almost shockingly one-note.
Babel suggests something coming out of the ether—always in a hurry but sometimes dropping clues as to where it's going and where it will end up. Chronology is jumbled as it was in 21 Grams, only this film's fudging of time is slightly less shrill, sometimes even soothing (a phone call received by one of the characters indicates that someone else—far away and close to death—might just turn out okay). In the end, though, it's not the linking devices, however desperate, that cripple the film (and the audience), but the stories themselves, which are jerry-rigged with trite scare tactics meant to elicit tongue-clucking. In Mexico, Amelia's nephew Santiago (Gael García Bernal) shoots a bullet into the air (at which point you wonder if it will ricochet off a taco stand and go through someone's head), but not before he decapitates a chicken, scaring the #### out of Susan and Bill's lily-white son Mike (Nathan Gamble). The film delights in keeping its audience on edge, evoking life as a perpetual roller coaster ride of potential doom and gloom.
Though less histrionic than 21 Grams, Babel rests on the laurels of wafer-thin approximations of real people: We learn close to nothing about Susan and Bill other than that he might have had an affair ("You're never going to forgive me," he says, in response to her violent reaction to his refusal to throw away the ice from his glass of Coca-Cola), thus explaining her tight-assness, and much of the nuance allotted to Barraza and an excellent Kikuchi's characters are isolated almost entirely to the punchlines, so to speak, of their respective storylines. Babel gives us reasons to care about its characters, but only when we're way past forgiving the film's flip storytelling. Comparisons to the vulgar Crash are fair only up to a point, given how Babel is prone to sacrificing character at the altar of the almighty shock tactic, but the film more accurately brings to mind the schematic, globe-trotting Syriana, in which people are cast as pawns in an elaborate game of Risk.
Babel is not entirely without merit. In Morocco, there is great heart to the way natives band together to support Susan, who is tended to by an old woman and, later, a physician who sews up her wound without removing the bullet lodged in her neck. Implicit in the way Susan and Bill are abandoned by their selfish tour group, and the U.S. embassy's delayed rescue of the couple, is how our country's global war on terror has thrown a wrench into our collective humanity. Also, there is the tragic recurring theme of authority figures, both in Morocco and in the United States (where they find Amelia abandoned in the desert with Mike and Debbie, played by Elle Fanning), heartlessly pushing people to all sorts of rash decisions. But most striking is the film's critique of American privilege, the notion of two rich white Californians coming out on top at the expense of the rest of the world's people.
Though there is value to Babel, the filmmakers are careless about it. Commentaries rise to the surface only to dissipate in a cloud of connect-the-dot-isms. Just when you begin to appreciate the film's political perspectives, the filmmakers allow nuance to evaporate as they thrill in showing us how action in one part of the globe resonates in such a way that it affects someone's life thousands of miles away. How sad that the film's strongest storyline is its Tokyo-set one, in which a girl's disconnect from the world of sound causes her great embarrassment and leads her to thoughts of suicide. There is richness not only to Chieko's pain and lashing out but also to the modes of social interaction between this story's characters, yet her tale flimsily connects to the film's other, more high-minded fictions. Why her story doesn't constitute the whole of the film is simple: If it did then González Iñárritu would have been without Blanchett, Pitt, and García Bernal, who together ensure that this ivory tower of a film reaches the Oscar stage.
"...it is the weak who are cruel, and...gentleness is only to be expected from the strong." - Leo Reston
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
Penelope wrote:Sonic Youth wrote:Reza wrote:
....with not a lacquered hair out of place!
God I miss those films.
There's always Nicole Kidman in Cold Mountain.
Yes, thank God for Anthony Minghella: Kristin Scott-Thomas and Juliette Binoche in The English Patient; Gwyneth Paltrow and Cate Blanchett in The Talented Mr. Ripley; Nicole Kidman in Cold Mountain. At least somebody knows some of us want to see women overemoting while dressed to the nines.
I'm afraid Gwyneth, Nicole, Cate and Juliette (I'm partial to Kristin Scott however) just cannot compare to Lana, Ava, Bacall etc!
Anyway let's not digress from Mister Tee's original post on Cannes and the Babel reviews!
Yes, thank God for Anthony Minghella: Kristin Scott-Thomas and Juliette Binoche in The English Patient; Gwyneth Paltrow and Cate Blanchett in The Talented Mr. Ripley; Nicole Kidman in Cold Mountain. At least somebody knows some of us want to see women overemoting while dressed to the nines.Sonic Youth wrote:Reza wrote:Penelope wrote:
Precisely! If Babel had been produced by Ross Hunter, Cate Blanchett woulda been racing around Morocco in gowns designed by Donatella Versace.
....with not a lacquered hair out of place!
God I miss those films.
There's always Nicole Kidman in Cold Mountain.
"...it is the weak who are cruel, and...gentleness is only to be expected from the strong." - Leo Reston
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster