Babel (2006)

	Directed by: Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu	COUNTRY USA/Mexico GENRE Drama NORWEGIAN TITLE Babel RUNNING TIME 142 minutes
	Produced by: Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu Steve Golin Jon Kilik
	Written by: Guillermo Arriaga

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Morocco segment
Richard	Brad Pitt
Susan	Cate Blanchett
Anwar	Mohamed Akhzam
Anwar's Grandmother	Sfia Ait Benboullah
Yussef	Boukber Ait El Caid	½
Ahmed	Said Tarchani	½
Abdullah	Mustapha Rachidi	½
Hassan	Abdelkader Bara
USA/Mexico segment
Amelia	Adriana Barraza	½
Debbie	Elle Fanning
Mike	Nathan Gamble	½
Santiago	Gael García Bernal
John – border patrol	Michael Peña
FBI Interrogation Officer	R.D. Call
Japan segment
Chieko	Rinko Kikuchi	½
Yasujiro	Kôji Yakusho	½
Mitsu	Yuko Murata
Kenji	Satoshi Nikaido
Agent Turner	Kenneth Mars

Review

Our planet is constantly internationalising, but with hundreds of different languages and cultures, comprehending each other is a major challenge that will increasingly place us in difficult situations. "If you want to be understood, listen" says Mexican auteur Alejandro González Iñárritu. His film Babel is a mosaic of thematic depth, focusing on the misconceptions, conventions and stereotypical thinking that inhibit our interaction. The brilliant, mature script by Guillermo Arriaga is always impartial towards its characters and themes, which keeps the viewer in a constant state of reflection. There's simply no way of watching Babel while retaining a simplistic worldview.

On one level, the film is also slightly political, but this by no means is Iñárritu's main focus here. As with his 21 Grams, his concern is for people and the intersection between their basic equality and their different cultural baggage. Again, the director creates a quilted structure, but he isn't trying to bring his different segments together with any kind of overplotted cohesion. There are connections, but they are mostly contextual.

All three segments are potent, but the one that truly merges the themes together is the Japanese segment. Here, politics and cultural differences are of little importance, and yet the frustration of a lack of communication is at its most apparent. Iñárritu also points out the cultural differences of East Asian, Middle Eastern, American and Latin ways of life in a beautifully objective, though still warm manner. He gives us a glimpse into each of these cultures without wanting to take a stand.

The acting in Babel is breathtaking – especially by the lesser known performers, such as Boukber Ait El Caid as the youngest Moroccan boy, Adriana Barraza as the Mexican nursemaid, and Rinko Kikuchi as the deaf Japanese girl. This is one of the most important films of the year – not because it is revelatory, but because it actually makes you think.