Babel

Released on DVD this week.

Babel contains four stories that involve miscommunication and culture-clashes. Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett play a married couple vacationing in Morocco when she is accidentally shot. He struggles to reach the US embassy and get her proper medical care. Meanwhile, the kids that shot them, two Moroccan brothers are pursued by the local police. Back in the US, the kids of Pitt/Blanchett are taken across the Mexican border by their illegal nanny (Adriana Barraza) when she wants to attend her son's wedding. And in Japan, a deaf teenager (Rinko Kikuchi) attempts to connect with anyone, in any way possible, after her mother's death.

The stories are all involving, but the Moroccan kids aren't given much to do. In the other 3 stories, there are uniformly powerful performances. I'm still not sure how Pitt didn't get nominated for his emotional, complex performance. It probably has something to do with leaving missionary-position Jennifer Aniston for the priapism-inducing Angelina Jolie. The movie does have a total of seven nominations, all deserved. The editing is suberb, deftly juggling all four stories. The transitions from the suburban Tokyo to the deserts of Morocco and Mexico are never disjointing.

It's become fashionable to dislike Babel. It's been called "this year's Crash", but Babel doesn't have one ridiculous coincidence after another in its last hour. Some others complain that the Japanese story connects with the other three too loosely. That's true, but since the movie is about miscommunication and failing to relate to those around you, I think that's kind of the point. A-


Semi-spoiler: The movie gets bonus points for having the guts to allow the first-world Americans and Japanese succeed and the third-world Moroccans and Mexicans suffer. Pretty honest and grim stuff.