With seven Golden Globe nominations, and a surprise win for Best Picture, expect Babel to be a major player when the Oscar nominations are announced later this month. Going into the Golden Globes, it’s chances were pretty good at getting an Oscar nomination. Now they may be all but guaranteed. If for no other reason, the Academy will nominate it just to upset the film’s haters (example here). Every year they nominate at least one movie people are a little polarized by, and this year it looks to be Babel. I traded some vicious cage-match e-mails over this movie (which I thought was very good, but not great). One of my friends believes the film ends without any hope, that it’s too hard to watch, that its level of complexity is “nil”. Of these criticisms I will only say, yes, the film is – at times – very hard to watch. My heart was in my throat half the time and it was nearly ripped out of my chest during that late scene in the desert, or the “peeing” scene between Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett or the scene where Rinko Kikuchi lays her body – and soul – bare to a police officer. But this is a very complex film and I believe does end with a signal of hope. The film’s last shot is a real beauty, one of the best of the year, and it’s all about hope because it’s all about healing. Everybody in Babel loses something and they all end up lost emotionally or physically (or both) because of it. For some this is the journey towards that loss, it is true. But for others it is the journey towards that healing and that is where the hope can be found.
There are a few plot threads at hand and if you are familiar with the work of director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga, you will not be surprised to find that they interconnect. Like Amores Perros and 21 Grams, there are three main stories revolving around an accident. Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett are a married couple whose relationship is clearly on the rocks and they have taken a trip to Morocco to “be alone”. Blanchett’s character ends up getting shot through circumstances I will not reveal here. Adriana Barraza plays Amelia, a nanny, taking care of their kids back home. Adriana’s son is getting married in Mexico and she ends up choosing to take the children there with her. The results prove disastrous. The third story is about a young Japanese deaf-mute girl who is affected by her mother’s death to such an extent she reaches out to others sexually (with little success). The fourth focuses on two good-natured Moroccan boys who make a very bad decision that sets a series of events in motion.
The Japanese story may seem out of place but it is, however indirectly, related to the other two and says a lot about what Inarritu and Arriaga are trying to achieve. Ultimately, how the stories are related in terms of plot is not important. Thematically they are the same. This is a film about loss, yes, but it is also about how lack of communication hinders our lives. Pitt cannot communicate with the outside world when his wife is shot. The act is miscommunicated as a terrorist threat. The Moroccan and United States governments cannot communicate properly to get his wife evacuated. There is miscommunication during a very important scene at the Mexican-United States border. Pitt and Blanchett have trouble communicating in their relationship … that is, of course, until tragedy – which brought them out of communication – brings them back in. The communication issues involving the Japanese deaf-mute girl can be obvious, but hidden is another barrier not revealed until much later.
The performances are uniformly excellent with a few standouts. Adriana Barraza deserves a nomination as the nanny and I was very happy to see her land herself a SAG and Golden Globe. Rinko Kikuchi is looking like another (deserved) lock and I still can’t believe she is not really a deaf-mute. Her performance is very touching and I love that Inarritu and Arriaga chose to end the film on her story. Brad Pitt might score himself a Supporting Actor nomination for his emotionally wrenching work. He and Blanchett share one of the most powerful moments captured on celluloid (the “pee” scene) this year and Pitt’s last telephone moment might send him across the finish line.
The film’s tragic atmosphere goes on a bit long for my tastes and if it did not end the way it did (with a sense of hope), I probably would have hated it. The film can be a depressing watch, but it reaches for truth in earnest. When I interviewed Rinko Kikuchi about the film, she said something very interesting:
Actually, I think miscommunication has a much more important role as far as human communication, because miscommunication, like you said, forces people to communicate, and I think that opens up new opportunities to sort of look at that person and realize a lot of new things, and understand that person better and – in a sense – deeper. So I think in that sense, miscommunication – basic human struggle – I think makes us realize the nature of human beings and I think beauty.
This , I feel, further extends the film’s complexites, and even if the movie is not in my Top Ten, it’s a meaningful, artful film and I’m cool with it getting recognized. Just don’t anyone dare take that Director Oscar from Marty.
