Once there was a time when all had a common language. This defied the very odds God had set for man to overcome. So, he decided to confuse them with babel. Babel is confusion; an ambiguous situation when different people speaking different languages cannot communicate through words. Alexandro Inarrtiu's masterpiece was a triumph in the creation of this world; a world of chaos. Babel is not just a cinema. It is a deep insight into raw naked human emotions and portrayal of harsh reality. It is a story spanning Morocco, United States of America, Japan & Mexico where one naive thoughtless act of child creates an an unavoidable chain of events leading to disastrous results worldwide.
Putting the pieces of story together, a Moroccan goat herder gives a rifle to his sons to practice shooting jackals. In a playful bet, the younger one ends up shooting a tourist bus. Meanwhile Richard (Brad Pitt) and Susan (Cate Blanchett) are on a vacation in Morocco to cope with the sudden death of their son. The couple are travelling in the same tourist bus which gets shot at. The shot hits Susan in the shoulder. America unhesitatingly brands this as an act of terrorism. The rifle used is traced back to a Japanese hunter who is struggling between some difficult times in his life, fighting the sorrow of his wife's death as well as the sexual longing of his daughter Chieko (Rinku Kikuchi). Susan is taken to a local village where the villagers try to get the best medical aid possible. Morocco refuse bringing an ambulance as they don't perceive it to be a terrorist act. Richard calls the nanny, who is looking after their kids in America, to cancel her son's wedding so that she can attend to the kids during this emergency. The nanny, hopeless and desperate to be at the wedding, asks her nephew Santiago (Gael GarcĂa Bernal) to drive the three of them to Mexico. While their return from the ceremony, the inebriated Santiago breaks the police barrier at USA-Mexican border when the police try to arrest him for drunk-driving and carrying the kids without the permission of their parents.
It is indeed a chaotic world where each culture tries to quell the violent outbursts of circumstances leading to a scarring misdemeanor. Rinku Kikuchi plays the role of prurient adolescent who is going through hormonal changes. She desperately tries for a sexual encounter even if it means trying to seduce her much older dentist. The climactic scene where Chieko stands on the commodious glass balcony, naked and vulnerable, is touching and remains as a depressing picture in your mind. While Pitt's Richard acts as a catalyst for the film playing a uxorious husband as well as taciturn human being sometimes to the very hosts who are helping Susan to recover, and we cant actually blame him for being afraid for his wife.
The film is so designed that every other individual creates a mark of his own. Alexandro handles the horror & emotional tension between the changing time-frames, carefully creating a surreal and imagination-rich experience. A network of different cultural backgrounds woven together by one tragedy, Babel is Inarrtiu's anomalous creation.
9 on 10
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