The human condition spans continents, uniting us despite the gulfs created by distance, language and culture — this is the theme of Babel, the last film by director Alejandro González Iñárritu and writer Guillermo Arriaga. At least, that’s what I think the theme is, yet despite a nearly two-and-a-half hour running time, I’m still not quite sure.
The film follows four (sometimes tenuously) connected stories. In the first, a Moroccan goat farmer gives his two young sons a rifle in order to defend the goats from jackals. The second sees a nanny and housekeeper take her two young (white) charges across the border from the U.S. to Mexico in order for her to attend her son’s wedding. The third story has Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett holidaying in Morocco when Blanchett’s character is suddenly shot through the window of a tourist bus. (See where this is going?) Finally, in Japan we’re given the story of a deaf teenager whose disability isolates her from her peers, resulting in a kind of confused, desperate form of sexual aggression.
There is no doubt that, technically, Babel is an excellent film. The performances are all stunning and González Iñárritu’s ability to place the audience within each environment means that the jigsaw puzzle presented is never confusing or disorienting. His respect for each culture shines through, and there’s a real sense of credibility to the overall flavour and atmosphere presented.
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Early in Ridley Scott’s American Gangster, Russell Crowe’s character, a New Jersey detective, discovers almost $1 million in unmarked bills in the trunk of a car. Does he take the money? If he does, he’s entering into the murky world of corruption that the bulk of his colleagues seem to inhabit; if he doesn’t, he’s putting himself in immediate danger because, as his partner observes, “Cops kill cops they can’t trust.” He decides to turn in the money anyway.
Hilary Swank is a talented actress, winning an Oscar not only for her performance in Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby, but also as the transgendered Brandon Teena in Boys Don’t Cry. Why she’d choose to then star in such a tepid romance as P.S. I Love You is a mystery right up there with the meaning of Stonehenge and the reason why Travolta never made Battlefield Earth 2.
The Fountain has a troubled history as a production: originally cast with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett as the leads, the project was eventually shelved, only to be resurrected two years later with a scaled-back budget (less than half the initial budget of $75 million) and a new cast. To see the finished product, I can’t help but feel this was all for the best.
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