DVD Review: Babel (Two-Disc Special Collector's Edition)

By Frankie Dees Sep 27, 2007, 16:29 GMT

"In Gen. 11:9, the name of Babel is etymologized by association with the Hebrew verb balal, \'to confuse or confound\'" (www.wikipedia.org/wiki/babel)..."Babel", through a series of misunderstandings, interweaves the unfortunate circumstances of a Moroccan, an American, a Mexican and a Japanese family. A Moroccan family acquires a rifle to protect their goats. An American woman, on a bus tour with her husband, is accidentally shot, which is in turn grossly exaggerated ...more

As predicted, eight months after the release of the special feature-challenged original release of ‘Babel’, we now arrive at a “Collector’s Edition” in which the sole difference is one, count ‘em one, extra in the form of an extensive 90-minute documentary which gets a disc all to itself.

‘Babel’, the third picture in a loosely themed trilogy from director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and his writing partner Guillermo Arriago following ‘Amores Perros’ and ’21 Grams’ uses the same techniques of juxtaposition for a humanistic whirlwind of cause and effect in this daring and provocative picture.

If it ain’t broke, why fix it? That must be the question Inarritu and Arriago asked themselves before they sat down to collaborate on this picture which has gotten much broader in scope and ambition than their last two pictures if it doesn’t quite match the raw, emotional wallop of ‘Amores Perros’.

The movie starts with what will be the centerpiece of the film, what could be a benign tool for Morroccan shepherds turns into a butterfly effect of destruction that will touch four groups of people on three different continents across four different languages - a Winchester rifle. The rifle is traded between Morrocan shepherds where a farmer Abdullah (Mustapha Rachidi) desires the rifle to shoot at roving jackals that surround his herd of goats.

After a simple exercise of playing and practicing with the gun, Abdullah hands the rifle over to his two young sons who are assigned to watch over the herd. Playing around with the rifle by themselves, they question the distance the gun will fire and proceed to shoot off in the distance. A tour bus winds its way over the horizon into fair view which provides a seemingly perfect target for two innocuous but very foolish kids.

Americans, Richard and Susan (Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett) are traveling together with obvious tension between them. The two are married with kids yet an unspoken rift is apparent and a vacation must have seemed like a good idea to excise the demons. It’s all Susan can do to smile, with small annoyances such as a small Morrocan restaurant only having Coke and not Diet Coke setting her off on a complaint-filled rant. Richard, in whom the trip was obviously his idea to lift the unknowing weight off her shoulders, remains tolerant and caring. They return to the tour bus where tragedy soon strikes.

The third arm of the story starts off in San Diego where we meet a genial, middle-aged Mexican nanny, Amelia (Adriana Barraza) taking care of two children Mike (Nathan Gamble) and Debbie (Ellie Fanning). We overhear a conversation between Amelia and the children’s father.

The children’s parents are on vacation and cannot find anyone else to take care of the kids as Amelia requested to go to Mexico for the day for her son’s wedding. Apologetic but firm, the father offers to pay for a new wedding but insists that Amelia stay with the children.

Desperate and unable to find anybody herself to look after the kids, she makes the fateful decision to take them to Mexico with her. Packing them in her nephew Santiago’s (Gael Garcia Bernal) car that has come to pick them up, they proceed over the border where one gets the distinct feeling that Santiago is somewhat of a loose cannon.

The final section of the concurrently running narrative moves us to Tokyo, Japan where rather appropriately, this story is the most closed off and separated from the rest of the film. Like Japan itself, this section is more isolated and built to stand by itself.

Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi) is a very unhappy girl. Even though she has plenty of friends, the opposite sex has proven a chore for her. Being a deaf mute, she finds herself in a constant paranoid or defensive state always wary of ridicule.

Boys become embarrassed after coming up to her to strike up a conversation and discover her handicap, they shy away and cover their embarrassment with laughter which provokes Chieko to lash out in a sexually deviant ways (unleashing the ‘hairy monster’ as she calls it).

Struggling to find somebody she can connect with and pushing her concerned father away, she sees a kindness in a young police investigator’s eyes that is there to question her father about an incident and proceeds to find out if he could possibly be the key to her inherent sadness and isolation.

First off, the film is gorgeous with cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto providing some compassionate photography that captures the contrast of the different locales with a vitality and profoundness damn near approaching Godfrey Reggio’s ‘Koyaanisqatsi’.

The overcast, overpopulated, drabness of Tokyo during the day turns into a sparkling wonderland of sights and sounds during the night; the stark, angular Morrocan desert is captured like it’s a different world, indeed it seems like Morocco could double for Mars with the rocky, orange and red tinted landscape dotted with a sun-induced blurriness; and finally the dusty borderline wasteland between Mexico and America.

Prieto shoots the film with a keen, watchful eye, careful to match Inarritu’s tone of the narrative be it the tragic-stricken despair of Morocco, the alienation of Japan and the hopelessness of the border. This collaborative thinking has led him to being Inarritu’s cinematographer of choice which led him to the exquisite looking ‘Brokeback Mountain’ for Ang Lee last year. Certainly, Prieto will be a cinematographer to be reckoned with in future years.

The narrative is certainly a beguiling attempt at something more with a momentum captured with some accomplished editing. The stories cut back and forth seamlessly despite some jarring exits yet the viewer is never at a loss, the stories slowly coming into light as they play out. The connections between the stories, why always obvious, become more viable as the film closes.

The acting is all exemplary from the unknowns to the stars. The film is filled with great, authentic faces and all of the familiars do a commendable job digging into their roles and not distracting from the flow of the film. Pitt, adopting a touch of aging makeup and graying up his hair and beard does a great job with such a frenetic role, where he has to be in a constant state of emotion.

Blanchett doesn’t have much to do but convey anguish but she has some effective early scenes. Garcia Bernal is good with Barraza (nominated for best supporting actress) being outstanding touching on everything from despair and panic to maternal bonding and small signs of a new love. Her last scenes are heartbreaking.

The standout in this ensemble though is without a doubt Rinko Kikuchi (also nominated for best supporting actress) who is amazing as Chieko, she manages to portray in equal measure both extraordinary inner strength and defiance along with a deep-seeded air of hopelessness and loneliness. The chaotic rave sequence set in a Japanese nightclub is a masterwork of film technique and performance.

Her father played by Koji Yakusho, great in a lot of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s work like ‘Cure’ and ‘Doppelganger’ is also a model of restraint showing just the right hints of emotion in a limited number of expressions. Their final embrace was the perfect choice to pan back and out.

The film is presented in 1.85:1 widescreen and is enhanced for widescreen televisions.  The special features on disc 1 remain the exact same from the previous release which is the films theatrical trailer and a few other previews.

“Expect a special edition in the near future once the results of the films’ seven Oscar nominations are in” is from my previous review of the 1-disc release and now here we are with a second disc although the results of the seven Oscar nominations only translated into a win for Gustavo Santaollala’s sweeping score (which does a great job of underlining the film but not getting in the way like say, Mark Isham’s cloying score for ‘Crash’).

The sole occupant of the second disc and the only thing that differentiates the previous release from this “collector’s edition” is the documentary “Common Ground: Under Construction Notes”, an extensive making-of video diary from director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu.

Not glossy or superficial like the majority of “documentaries” featured on discs, this is an extremely well-made and engaging look at the process of making the film and of filmmaking in general.

While not structured into any defining chapters, the majority of the running time looks at the process of making the picture through Inarritu’s eyes, the casting process, locations, etc. Reminding me of one of the best insides looks at a film, “The Hamster Factor” from ’12 Monkey’s’, there’s a lot of unflinching honesty from the cast and crew about the making of the picture where the camera doesn’t shy away from Inarritu’s sometimes “Kubrick”ian ways of making a film.

Certainly a must if you enjoyed the film, I would still recommend it for fans of the filmmaking process in general even if your opinions on the film were somewhat mixed.
 
‘Babel’ is a complex investment in character and storytelling that lives up to what that title suggests. An exploration of the difficulties of making a connection be it through verbal and cultural differences or merely the differences that exist in humanity as a whole. The film is quite an endurance test for people’s emotions which walks along a much more stable and subtle path than ‘Crash’ which covers the same thematic ground in a similar way but is content to just hit the viewer over the head with its message mallet.

The film has flaws to be sure, the interlocking story approach might be nearing the end of its welcome and how these stories connect come dangerously close to stretching credibility but its hard not to be awed by such a daunting accomplishment. It’s nice to find a film that is thought-provoking, that has a distinct vision and is unwavering in its message.

If you don’t have the previous release, this ‘2-disc: Collector’s Edition’ is definitely the way to go and comes highly recommended. If you do have the previous release, I’m not quite sure the documentary warrants a whole new purchase but I would easily think it might justify a rental. It probably just comes down to how important a well-made documentary is to you.

Babel (Two-Disc Special Collector's Edition) is now available at Amazon. As of yet, there is not a release date for this version of the DVD in the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.