Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu

Starring : Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Boubker Ait El Caid

Certificate : 15

Emotional content is a tricky business. Melodrama and tack won’t cut it anymore, especially with films that lie just on the boundary of mainstream cinema. What a relief it is that Alejandro Iñárritu is here and making movies.

The ironically titled ‘Babel’ – which translates from the Spanish as ‘Babylon’ – starts from a relatively simple point: American tourists Richard (Pitt) and Susan (Blanchett) are trying to revive their troubled marriage in the arid deserts of Morroco. Things are thrown into sudden crisis when Susan is shot whilst traveling through the Moroccan mountains. This event sparks Iñárritu’s global story, linking together separate plots from all over the world.

Had this film been made by anyone else, it would have been a simple ‘piece-the-clues-together’, run of the mill drama. But Iñárritu has developed an exceptional ability to treat even the most troubling and poignant subjects with an artistic, yet realistic eye. From Richard and Susan’s story, we move to the other Moroccan story, that of the boys responsible for the shooting. Morocco is captured brilliantly, using slow methodical takes to portray the bleakness of the desert. These two stories reflect respectively onto Richard and Susan’s children and their trip to a Mexican wedding, and yet again onto a Japanese deaf-mute girl and her father.

It is difficult to cover all the intricacies of each story, save to say that they are all equally and uniquely compelling. Aesthetically, the film is faultless. Collaborating once again with cinematographer Roger Prieto and musician Gustavo Santoalalla, Iñárritu moves the film along with a jarring and disruptive sequence of cuts, which put mainstream values of pace to shame. The bleak austerity of Morocco is juxtaposed with the fast-moving world of Tokyo, which in turn contrasts with the surprisingly desolate portrayal of Mexico. Yet throughout, each story unravels with a beautiful urgency and the fragmented editing and narrative techniques add to the frail eloquence with which every frame is imbued.

There are a few awkward moments which confuse some the character’s emotional drives – including a fairly gratuitous kiss between Richard and Susan. Nevertheless, ‘Babel’ remains a prime example of Iñárritu’s talent for unwrapping people’s instinctual motivation. Expertly made, with an important sense of its own morality, ‘Babel’ reconfigures the themes explored in 2003’s ‘21 Grams’ into a profound and exceptional film.