Movies Reviews
Movie Review: Babel
By Anne Brodie Oct 24, 2006, 7:29 GMT
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Older Talkback
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I am so confused about the relationship of the father and deaf girl The movie is very dark but has many messages
What was in the note the young girl gave the detective? What was her relationship with her father, and why wasn't he suprised to find her naked on the balcony? Does that tie back to the mothers suicide?
What was in the note the young girl gave the detective? What was her relationship with her father, and why wasn't he suprised to find her naked on the balcony? Does that tie back to the mothers suicide?
I am just as confused as you are. I also don't understand why the daughter told the detective that her mother jumped from the balcony when the father said she shot herself in the head. It doesn't make sense.
yes, that's my q too. who's telling the truth - father or daughter? and how come the father wasnt surprised to see her daughter naked? Lol. also, what's the note to the detective all about. i was waiting for that but i didnt explain it. totally cluess about the japanses setting. over-all twas a good movie.
Excellent movie except we too wonder about the Japanese girl and why she was so troubled. Did she see her mother's sucicide? Did she kill her? Did she cover for her father? What was the long note? We'd recommend it even with the questions.
Good Film and I am very impressed with the Director's abilty to keep up a 'sense of impending menace' right through the film.
However, i am very disturbed by the acute, but narrow, racial profiling done in the film. The stereotypes, right down to the golden-haired sweet American kids is too narrow minded and simplistic. One of my take-outs from the film is that the Western First World person is sane and centered while the rest of the world is strange and weird. Is the Director presenting this as irony or satire?
This movie was so heavy handed it left me bruised. The Japanese connection was so flimsy and superfluous to the story I am still wondering what the point of it was. Every direction the story took was entirely predictable.
Is everyone in the movie profoundly stupid? Why wait days for an ambulance when you have an air conditioned bus? Why cross the US border with a drunk driver and two white kids when you are Mexican after turning down an offer to wait for a sober driver? Why shoot at a bus to see how far a bullet will go? Why is the japanese story even in this movie?
If you want to see a film about depressed people incapable of making an intelligent decision, this movie is for you.
However, this sophomoric venture will be candy for bored critics. Wait for it to come out on cable.
A movie of profound wisdom.
Who of us has never experienced the torment of not being listened to?
It's interesting that the 'deafness' belongs to the powerhunger bureacrats(the police in Morocco, the Customs officers in the USA, the policeman in Japan)Is this not our current world with politicians placating us without listening.....an unfair war in Iraq, selective nuclear capabilities,etc.
The hope in the movie lies in the simple, honest human connections.....Although the mexican woman is expelled from the USA, there is a person loving her waiting in Mexico,the young Moroccan boy's honesty when he authentically admits 'I shot the woman', the Japanese father returning to his naked daughter on the balcony ready to commit suicide in her time of need, the relationship between the bus driver anad Bradd Pitt which allowed the driver to understand the man's agony at the side of his dying wife, the elderly Moroccan lady honoring the dying woman from a different culture.....Babel, the tower which led to different cultures when everyone wanted to be God, therefore reaching up to heaven away from their evil desires.....Babel, the movie of confusion between cultures....but the ultimate threat of Love from the human heart drawing individuals from different cultures together again.
Bravo, a brilliant existential movie giving meaning in our age of despair.
I walked out of this movie after about 90 minutes. It made me nauseous. It was too violent, too much unecessary sexuality. I don't understand why it won so many awards. All of these people made ridiculously stupid decisions, starting with the Moroccan goatherd giving a rifle to two children to use. I think it portrayed Moroccans in a very bad light and that is unfortunate. And the Japanese girl - perhaps she should have tried to have a meaningful relationship with another deaf-mute boy rather than trying to stick her toungue in her dentist's mouth. Distusting...I really felt no compassion for any of the characters at all.
I thought it was a thoughtful, well made film - although I agree that the Japanese dimension jarred somewhat - perhaps that was the point. Agree that the film was about isolation and our inability to communicate effectively. To my mind the terrible errors of judgement were typical of those made by flawed human beings all the time - there but for the grace of God, etc. Stunning photography and excellent performances all round. Don't go if you are expecting an 'action thriller' - it's better than that, but slower.
i found the movie to be very profound, it portrayed communication in all its forms, and that despite the movie not being very vocal, yet all its minute emotions and sensations are felt and realised. i felt the director wished to raise speculative discourse, i personally inferred that the Japanese girl intended to suicide but had once again recognised deeper values, and her confession to this was the content of the secret note. i'd like to hear what other people speculated.
I'm not sure I understand the purpose of this film although I appreciated the directing, photography,and even the sound track. I was uncomfortable watching part of it as so many of the decisions made were so absurd. It was as though we were asked to leave part of our brains at home. Was it important for us to see this tough film? Believe it or not I thought the acting was supurb. Perhaps this script brought out the best of the cast. I'm not sure it brought out the best of the writers. Having said all this, my partner thought it was one of the best films he has seen. We haven't stopped discussing it.
OK forgive my perverted mind but...as far as I know Japanese men like young school girls(Look at the dress code on how high they wear their plad skirt....OK Did the rifle he give the guy in the dessert while so called hunting be used to kill his wife cause the wife found her husband and daughter(eeyyywww) doing dirty thing. Maybe the girl has been traumatized and think that all men are supposed to ehem screw with her...shes a messed up teenager,,,anyhew...They never reported on how the body of the wife was found...This movie is confusing an to hell with the director for making me rent it and be frustrated he owes us an explanation what the helll man I am writing about it on the internet maybe we can come together and build a cyber tower of babel and reach GOD so he can explain why he allowed this movie to be made ahhhh Im a psychotic cofused guatemalan on the internet whatching so called american jargon that makes no dam sense why go to college to learn that nothiong makes sense(Polar ice caps to all were going to die soon anyways...love Geo...ttfn...cherie-o...asta la vista...adeu..
A profoundly emotional film. The fact that it didn’t follow a single plot line is what made it predictable. The foreshadowing of future events was mostly attributed to the fact that the events proceeding had already been shown. It is easy to view from the audience’s perspective, all the poor decisions which each character made. Each poor decision was understandable because the characters were blinded by alternative motivations. The boy shot at the bus because he was trying to prove to his brother that he was not a lousy shot (There was no problem with the father giving his sons a gun to defend their livelihood from sheep). The American tourist chose to wait for the ambulance rather than drive four hours and watch his wife bleed to death in her seat, because he needed to do the best thing for her with the amount of information he had at the time. The illegal nanny felt obligated to bring the children home because she knew they were not supposed to be in Mexico to begin with and she trusted her nephew to drive them safely. The Japanese girl was acting out sexually because she was badly traumatized by her mother’s death and possible sexual abuse.
The story in Japan was a little too disconnected to the rest of the story, but I think it was there for contrast with the rest. This part of the story did not show the immediate threatening of lives, but instead the emotional torture of a young girl. I think the sexual curiosity between the Moroccan boy and his sister was a clue that something horribly wrong had gone on with the Japanese girl. I think that the father was molesting his daughter, the mother found out and she shot herself. After that point in time I think the demented father came to his senses and stopped molesting his daughter. Then she was so screwed up after going from being molested to not receiving any affection from her father. Another clue was the fact that the girl acted out on older men and made a comment to the mean girl about “fucking her dad.” I think some of this information might have been revealed in the note to the police officer, but I can’t assume how much. Does anybody agree on my theory about the Japanese girl?
A profoundly emotional film. The fact that it didn’t follow a single plot line is what made it predictable. The foreshadowing of future events was mostly attributed to the fact that the events proceeding had already been shown. It is easy to view from the audience’s perspective, all the poor decisions which each character made. Each poor decision was understandable because the characters were blinded by alternative motivations. The boy shot at the bus because he was trying to prove to his brother that he was not a lousy shot (There was no problem with the father giving his sons a gun to defend their livelihood from sheep). The American tourist chose to wait for the ambulance rather than drive four hours and watch his wife bleed to death in her seat, because he needed to do the best thing for her with the amount of information he had at the time. The illegal nanny felt obligated to bring the children home because she knew they were not supposed to be in Mexico to begin with and she trusted her nephew to drive them safely. The Japanese girl was acting out sexually because she was badly traumatized by her mother’s death and possible sexual abuse.
The story in Japan was a little too disconnected to the rest of the story, but I think it was there for contrast with the rest. This part of the story did not show the immediate threatening of lives, but instead the emotional torture of a young girl. I think the sexual curiosity between the Moroccan boy and his sister was a clue that something horribly wrong had gone on with the Japanese girl. I think that the father was molesting his daughter, the mother found out and she shot herself. After that point in time I think the demented father came to his senses and stopped molesting his daughter. Then she was so screwed up after going from being molested to not receiving any affection from her father. Another clue was the fact that the girl acted out on older men and made a comment to the mean girl about “f***ing her dad.” I think some of this information might have been revealed in the note to the police officer, but I can’t assume how much. Does anybody agree on my theory about the Japanese girl?
The movie was a bit confusing... but after reading some
reviews why the movie was made how it was....
it made a lot of sense.
all i know is that i love Kikuchi Rinko!
I didn't take the time to read all of the previous posts, but...
The decision to give the rifle to the boys was not a bad one. _Assuming_ they were competent enough to use it was dumb. North American fathers and mothers do that all the time with things like alcohol, the family car, and sometimes firearms.
My take on the Japanese plot doesn't assume any abuse, rather a frustrating loneliness referring to Lost in Translation and Children of a Lesser God. The most significant connection aside from the fatal gift of the rifle is the effect of balancing first- and third-world plot outcomes.
While the Mexican and Moroccan families suffered dire consequences in the end, the Americans and the Japanese benefit from fairly cushy safety nets.
Perhaps in the end it truly is a metaphor about the environment: how we in the first world are sublimely ignorant of how our consumption habit affects people worse-off than we are.
ME
the dughter told the detective that her mother jumped off the balcony because she and her father don't want to be questioned anymore.
I partially agree with the comments on the japanese girl.. I never thought about the molestation angle..
The girl was not just into older guys but also younger guys. I think she is sexually frustated aggravated by her loneliness and the guilt she feels knowing that her father killed her mother.
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