RUTHERFORD ON FILM: ‘Babel’: Thoughtless Act by Young Boy Has Worldwide Reverberations
By Tony RutherfordHuntington News Network Critic
Huntington, WV (HNN) – Synchronicity from a thoughtless action by a young boy in Morocco, touches three additional countries -- Japan, Mexico and the U.S.
Despite what should be jagged time sequence dilemmas, “Babel” nearly seamlessly overcomes this hurdle and entrenches viewers with its bedrock “revelations” that humans of all nations have similar composition. The absorbing study of people and their reactions to stressful situations and the consequences of decisions impacting beyond self punctuates commonalities, not differences among various ethnic groups.
Simply, the film begins with an exchange in ownership of a rifle in Morocco. The farmer beams that the weapon will make easier the killing of jackals preying upon the flock. However, his wife grimaces when he allows their two young sons to shoot the gun. It’s as if by merely firing the rifle, the young men ignite a loss of innocence in that one day both of them may use this gun or one like it for warfare.
A short time later with dad not around, the boys test the rifle’s range by firing from a desert mountain top. With the mindset of young Americans tossing rocks from a bridge at a car, the two Arab lads aim at a bus creeping its way through the passage. One bullet hits the side of the vehicle. The boys run.
However, the bullet did not merely graze the aluminum skin of the bus; it struck an American tourist (Cate Blanchett) in the shoulder. The woman’s husband (played by Brad Pitt) must now desperately find help to stop the bleeding. As the vehicle veers into a small village in search of a physician, Pitt communicates with the U.S. embassy about the emergency. Soon, headlines blare that an American has been shot by terrorists while on a holiday in Morocco.
Perfecting communication -- and erratic errors and distortions along the path -- thematically tie the two additional chapters, which focus on a Mexican woman taking care of two American children and a deaf mute Japanese teen troubled by the suicide of her mother.
Alejandro González Iñárritu (“21 Grams”) shrewdly interlocks various aspects of the film medium to jarringly and thematically illustrate frantic miscommunications that result in anger, fear, hurt, and pain across the globe. While the dry, quiet desert contrasts with the blended sounds at a large Japanese city, the noise -- be it car horns, voices or music -- means nothing to a deaf mute whose perceptions are captured by seconds of dramatic quietness in an otherwise rockin’ nightspot.
The director’s ability to accentuate your attention to apparently minor details generates genius for revealing a smorgasbord of deep thoughts within an otherwise outstanding cliffhanger of obscure and serendipitous determinations, i.e. taking a short cut, being two places at once, making reckless and dangerous steps fearing aloneness and death. Watching what appears random cutaways to locations separated by oceans gradually become anticipated as components of sameness emerge from the emotional fragility of the varying characters and the individual cultural auras surrounding them.
And, the consequences mount -- physically and emotionally -- no matter what nation a person calls home. They doubt, fear, hope, cry, bleed, laugh, love and express compassion, sometimes unconditionally, all around the globe. One would plead that more filmgoers and leaders adopt the philosophy of this brittle, provocative, and insightful production.