Babel

From the flier: Babel: (noun) 1. In the Bible, a famous tower built by a united humanity to reach toward heaven, causing God in his anger to make each person involved speak a different language, halting the project and scattering a confused and disconnected people across the planet.

I will admit, I was hazy on what the term ‘Babel’ meant before I read the brochure. I’m glad it was cleared up for me before the movie; I think I watched in a different manner because of it. And my god, what a phenomenal movie to kick off 2007 with. Editing wise, it’s very much like Crash. Slightly non-linear, a few stories edited together and eventually colliding at the end. But where Crash’s ‘theme’ is racism, this one essentially comes back to the above concept of Babel and the language barrier and the way it can interfere in so many things. However, the real strength of this movie was that it didn’t deal with just the language barrier but also a deeper themes of cultural and language disconnect, and even went so far as to broach these issues within the context of authority and generations. The three stories are set in three different locations – Morocco, Japan and the US/South America. You couldn’t really get three more different locations and this is where my only criticism comes into play – the link to the Japanese portion of the story was tenuous for me, but at the same time the Japanese part was so interesting and challenging that I’ll forgive it for that. The value of this movie for me personally lay in the issues it raises about (to borrow a term from the flier again) ‘the barriers that seem to separate humankind’. The film deals with them in such a way that even the warm and ‘happy’ parts are never soppy and condescending, and it never preaches which I always appreciate in a film. The cast is uniformly outstanding, which is great considering that it was filmed over three continents and in four languages and not all the actors are professionals. The real strength of this movie is really in its characters and the interactions between them in the scenarios they have been placed in.

Overall, a massively high benchmark for the year – 9.5

ps: I keep editing this review, because I can't work out how to add in that it's just such an important film. Not only is it great as a film, but the theme at its heart is something that's so important for everything to think about, and dare I say, dwell on. I will be seeing this film again and won't be able to stop thinking about it for some time.