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In Reply to: RE: Babel posted by mishmashmusic on February 19, 2008 at 08:05:59
I didn't know how the first few stories would end. The last one, I thought the girl would jump off the balcony. It was a gutsy film that took a lot of chances. I usually dislike Pitt and Blanchett, but even they did alright. Most of all, I loved the cinematography and was blown away watching the Blu-ray version. It was filmed expertly.
Excerpted from my review:
In the Book of Genesis, the story of Babel reveals how mankind's push to overachieve backfires, leading to the spread of divine confusion and spiritual pain. The biblical story has inspired many artists over the centuries and director Alejandro Iñárritu is certainly an artist. If there was any doubt of that before, he dispels it here. His vision is powerful, his actors perform magnificently and his story, despite flaws and risky subject matter, is accessible and even noble, if not rising to its spiritual inspiration. Iñárritu achieves riveting performances from his entire cast--from children and foreign actors never before seen in Hollywood to superstars Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett.
The film weaves tales of confusion, miscommunication, terror and alienation in Morocco, Tokyo, San Diego and Mexico. It begins as an arab father buys a rifle for his two sons to protect a goat herd from jackals. In a horrid test of target practice, the boys take aim at a bus winding on a mountain pass below. With dramatic camera work and haunting music that bring audiences into the characters' locales and psyches, Iñárritu creates a strong gravitational force that moves through an ultradramatic narrative.
The stories unfold in a nonlinear way as Iñárritu attempts to weave together the seemingly disconnected subplots. He valiantly attempts to link them together. Perhaps the strands should have been left separate and produced as different vignettes, each in a linear way, from beginning to end. But I admire Iñárritu for attempting to resolve a tricky narrative with so many unrelated characters. Whether he pulls it off is debatable, but his skill and vision is beyond doubt. The film is not for everyone and has some disturbing content that portrays violence and nudity in ways that audiences are unaccustomed to seeing. For those of us who like to be drawn into a truly inspired cinematographic experience, Babel comes strongly recommended. And Paramount did a fine job with the Blu-ray.
Alienation, pain and miscommunication are universal themes, common to all humanity. Babel captures these themes well and weaves adept, muscular stories around them. The film does not achieve absolute spirituality and timelessness, but the stories are handled with great care and artistic vision. In the hands of a lesser filmmaker than Iñárritu, these plot lines would have come unglued, but we are treated to a film of ample quality and of emotive, spellbinding content. The book of Genesis tells of mankind's push to build a city, a tower, reaching to the heavens. In the modern world, many of our cities have such towers. And Iñárritu's stories come to an end on one of these high risers, looking out over the lights of Tokyo at night.
-------------"I have found that if you love life, life will love you back." -Arthur Rubinstein (1887-1982)
Follow Ups:
...in 2000's Amores Perros, and to some extent in 21 Grams. IMO he did the same sort overlapping, complex story lines more powerfully in these earlier films. (BTW, I would imagine most audiences would find certain imagery these two films much more "disturbing" than Babel. But they are also much better movies.)
Inarritu (who, along with Alfonso Cuaron and Guillermo del Toro, is one of the celebrated "Three Amigos") is certainly one of the most talented directors in the world. His nerve and cinematic chops are beyond question. He surely deserves all praise for tackling this multilayered, interconnected, complex narrative with its interweaving stories, overlapping time lines and disparate characters.
Parts of Babel are certainly beautifully told (such as the Japanese story). But some of it feels rather trite (such as the Mexican chapter). Where Inarritu's previous films grabbed me and held me byt the throat for their entire length, Babel often annoyed and irritated me, taking me out of the story by calling attention to its own impotance. I bought Amores Perros right from the git go. I didn't buy Babel, not completely, not ever, although I wanted very much to like it.
For me, the script is the weak spot, never quite succeeding in tying this ambitious film together. I found the American characters in particular rather one dimensional and their reactions/responses often implausible. Too often Babel strains for its effects where the previous films created a more telling emotional truth.
For this I place much of the blame on Inarritu's close collaborator, screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga. Arriaga also wrote Amores Perros and 21 Grams, but it seems to me he bit off more than he could chew with Babel. Where Amores perros was content to trust the audience and let the characters and story tell us everything we needed to know, Babel keeps uderlining the message and adding exclamation points, just to be sure we "get it".
I get it, I just don't like it.
Come back, Inarritu, I miss your unique voice - leave the baggage behind this time.
What made it work for me was to view the separate storylines as unrelated vignettes. Thankfully, Babel did not try to force a greater link between them than the meager thread that existed. But you have to admit, the common denominator of desperation was communicated brilliantly, if not in the script than in the skill of the actors and director, whose chops are immense, as you say. Yes, I like Del Toro and Cauron very much.
Maybe what made Babel work for me is that I had such low expectations going in. I had heard it was a mess and didn't work at all. And I was pleasantly surprised.
-------------"I have found that if you love life, life will love you back." -Arthur Rubinstein (1887-1982)
...that Pan & CoM were slighted in critical polls and award noms by what I suspected was 2006's "Crash". And maybe I was hoping for too much.Babel is a much better movie than Crash, a film I also found pretentious and unsubtle. But after the brilliance of Amores Perros I was really hoping for something special.
OTOH, I was more than willing to give this movie a fair shot, since I'm a big fan of the Three Amigos and Inarritu's previous efforts.
Like I said above, if you don't swing hard, you never knock one out of the park. Inarritu swung hard - and IMO missed. But I like that he keeps on swinging.
The next movie I think will be key for him.
I meant predictable in the sense that you knew all the story threads would come together in the end, all the connections would be made, etc. There were no real surprises, other than the few moments that could be chalked up as shock value (uncomfortable nudity, violence, etc).
The scenes were way too long and drawn out, as if somehow lingering on them longer could make them better. Just didn't do it for me.
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