There are movies. And there are movies.
Babel clearly falls in the second category. Cinema, as a medium, has evolved a lot like all other mediums of communication, but much like nature’s hitherto unchanged design of humans that compels them to surrender to something that hits their hearts rather than brains, good cinema has also remained unchanged on this count.
The story begins in Morocco, where a shepherd receives a rifle from his acquaintance. He intends to use it to kill the jackals and hands it over to his two young kids. In their attempt to test the rifle for its effectiveness in covering long distance shot, the bullet hits an American tourist, Susan (Cate Blanchett) who is traveling with her husband Richard (Brad Pitt) in a bus.
This goes on to become an international news with all the obvious doubts of terrorist links behind the attacks. In Japan, at the same time, story of a deaf and mute and sexually starved young female unfolds whose father has gifted that rifle to a Moroccan guide while on a hunt. Another story is about a Mexican nanny who takes the kids to Mexico to attend her own son’s wedding as she can’t keep the kids elsewhere. These are Susan and Richard’s kids. While returning from Mexico, poor nanny is caught in trouble due to unwanted and untimely unrest by her nephew (who is driving the car) at a police check post.
After a long wait at a small town house in Morocco, finally Susan is taken to the hospital and gets cured. In the US, the kids are back to home. The Japanese girl’s story ends with her candid confrontation with a good-hearted cop and finally with her father.
Frames are MAGNIFICENT. Camera work is extra-ordinary and I offer my all my cherished eulogies to the director – Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. Babel is an unforgettable piece of work. What strikes you is the humanness of all the four stories which are interwoven to the perfection. The human agony goes deep inside your mind and you are left with an almost anesthetized feeling. In the world where we witness the technology revolution and ease in communication, it is an underlined fact that we do not ‘know’ the others. We are not able to understand each other.
The cast is an ensemble of people across the continents and each one is just perfect. The characters are so real that you can’t help relating them to your random communication exchanges with different types of people.
Babel actually draws its inspiration from Genesis (text containing the historical presupposition and basis of the national religious ideas and institutions of Israel, and serves as an introduction to its history, laws, and customs – Ref. Wikipedia). In the Hebrew Bible ‘Babel’ is the name used for city of Babylon and as mentioned in Genesis it was the supposed location of Tower of Babel.
According to Genesis 11:1-9, mankind, after the deluge, traveled from the mountain where the ark had rested, and settled in ’a plain in the land of Shinar’ (or Senaar). Here, they attempted to build a city and a tower whose top might reach unto Heaven, the Tower of Babel. The attempt to build the Tower of Babel had angered God and His anger made each person involved speak a different language which ultimately halted the project and scattered and disconnected the people across the planet. (Ref. Wikipedia)
Whatever mythological base the movie might have, the depiction showcases the real, very real story of all of us who are truly lost in translation!
Watch Babel. It is a must.
Cheers!!
utpal