Life is simple – Living it is complex
Babel
From the first frames of an endless Moroccan desert landscape that unfolds mystically with a haunting musical background, the latest installment of Alejandro González Iñárritu’s trilogy takes hold. Events are occurring that, while seemingly unconnected, cleverly connect like pieces of a puzzle. The connections are subtle and a small part of a bigger story. The beauty of the film is the beauty of Iñárritu’s vision enhanced by cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto and the colorful cast of characters he chose to inhabit the screen from four disparate parts of the world.
The story revolves around the simple idea that small mistakes can have tragic consequences, and in doing so, a “butterfly effect”, defined in Webster’s New Millennium Dictionary of English as; a chaotic effect created by something seemingly insignificant, the phenomenon whereby a small change in one part of a complex system can have a large effect elsewhere, occurs in the lives of all the main characters.
Here are four stories. The story of Americans Richard (Brad Pitt) and Susan (Cate Blanchette), who, while touring Morocco after the tragic death of one of their children from SIDS, find their relationship strengthened by events that occur as a result of a story added to the movie. Two boys in a Moroccan mountain village practice with a rifle bought by their father, a sheep farmer, in order to kill predators in their flocks. A son targets the tour bus and Susan is shot, sparking an international incident with terrorist overtones. As this story evolves, another story revolves around home in the United States, where Richard and Susan’s children are in the care of their Mexican nanny Amelia (Adriana Barrasa), who must attend her son’s wedding in Mexico and cannot find a substitute to take care of the children. when Richard and Susan are delayed due to shooting. Amelia’s decision to take the children with her turns into chaos at the hands of hers her nephew Santiago (Gael García Bernal). The fourth story woven into this tapestry involves the disturbed life of deaf-mute teenager Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi), who is testing her adolescent limits in Japan with abandonment created as a result of her mother’s death and her life. with her distant father.
A powerful scene has increased the ecstasy of Chieko and her friends going into a frenzy to the sounds of a phenomenal remix of Shinichi Osawa’s Earth Wind and Fires disco hit “September”. Sound cleverly cycles off and on, allowing the audience to experience Chieko’s life firsthand in the most haunting yet fascinating way. This heartwarming scene alone is worth the price of admission.
That is the wonder of the film. It engages the viewer with the struggles in everyone’s lives. Iñárritu’s masterful talent brings an intimacy between the audience and the characters on screen that is so immediate it hurts to see his individual pain. Each performance is painfully honest, and the emotions are revealed so close to the bone that the viewer cannot tune out the personal tragedies that unfold.
The film gives you a close up of the human condition and you are left thinking about people and places with a familiarity gained from the experience of looking.
