Culture Clash

"Babel" is a film that was released in 2006, and gained great critical praise from the day it was released at the Cannes film festival. "Babel" combines four stories from Morocco, Mexico, Japan, and the US. All the stories are in some way connected and show that no matter how far away people are physically, no matter how different our cultures, we are (in some way) the same. The film is a drama that begins in Morocco where only a few of the main characters are introduced. Abdullah, a goatherder, is tired of jackals eating his goats and decides to buy a rifle from a friend to solve the problem. He gives this rifle to his two teenage sons, whom he believes will be responsible. Despite this thought, the boys, Yussef and Ahmed, decide to try it out. At first they shoot at rocks, and unbeknownst to the range of the rifle, they shoot at a tourist bus. The bullet hits a tourist, Susan Jones played by Cate Blanchett. Her husband Richard, played effortlessly by Brad Pitt, is more than distraught by this because he knows Susan did not want to be in Morocco in the first place. Simultaneously, two other stories are being told, that of Amelia a Mexican nanny, and Chieko, a Japanese deaf girl who refuses to speak traumatized after her mother's suicide. Amelia is taking care of two children, and for some reason the parents are delayed from coming back from their trip. Amelia's son's wedding happens to be that weekend so she decides to take the children with her, without the parents' consent. Problems ensue, along with Chieko's situation which proves just as morbid. Chieko's father is being investigated for a rifle, registered in his name, being involved in an attempted murder.
Starting to get the picture?
While watching this film I became increasingly interested in how and why the story was told as it was. The events are, obviously, told out of order and jump from location to location. Issues within the issues begin to present themselves and it is clear that the director intended for much more to be taken out of the film then just the surface information. "Babel" was directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu (pictured above with Brad Pitt), a Mexican director best known in the US for his film "21 Grams" which he has said is, in a way, a prequel to "Babel." Inarritu made it clear that he wanted all the locations in the film to actually be shot on location, so the film was shot in each of the four countries. In terms of directing the actors, Inarritu believed that in order for the characters to be presented as realistically as possible the actors needed to be placed directly in their shoes. He felt this could not be achieved filming only in California. Inarritu also decided that instead of having the characters who came from different countries speak English, he would have them speak their native language and add subtitles, which meant a majority of the film would have to be read. This decision was extremely important, and well made. By having the Japanese characters speak Japanese, and the Mexican characters speak Spanish, the film is given a certain authenticity that would not have been achieved otherwise. Being foreign himself, he had a better idea of how to make the film multi cultural, and it helped with the overall presentation of the film. Inarritu did not record a commentary for this film, like all the others he has made, and he explains why in an interview with a newspaper; “I don't like them. I feel that if you have to explain something it loses strength. It's like a magician trying to explain his magic, in a way. Those kind of things make me feel like I've lost something special about the film. The film should explain itself.” Inarritu tends not to explain everything in his films. In many cases the viewer has to infer what happens to the characters. This definetly gives the film a thought provoking edge and keeps you thinking and imagining long after having seen it, yet another trait of Inarritu's films. The name "Babel" for the film was not random, Inarritu is said to have chosen it carefully. Babel in the dictionary is defined as a confusion of voices or sounds. Throughout the film there are so many languages spoken, and a clear confusion is presented. A lot of translation is needed (hence the subtitles) but as Stuart Levine of MSNBC explains, "What unites them is a unifying voice, however. One which speaks universal truths in understanding the harsh realism of humanity."