A Scientist at the Movies Reviews by Greg Paris

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Title: Babel

Date Viewed: 11/27/06

Details:

Brad Pitt

Cate Blanchett

Mohamed Akhzam

Sfia Ait Benboullah

Ali Hamadi

Mustapha Amhita

Adriana Barraza

Rinko Kikuchi

Koji Yakusho

Yuko Murata

Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Score: 1/2

The Review: Multi-threaded and multinational drama emerging from the accidental shooting of an American tourist in rural Morocco.

Although it takes a while for the plot threads to merge, there are connections (to be expected) between an estranged couple touring in desert Morocco (Pitt & Blanchett), a Mexican immigrant (Barraza) escorting two young children on a wedding trip, a Japanese salaryman and his attractive deaf-mute daughter (Kikuchi), and the family of a back-country Moroccan tribesman (Hamadi). As these threads converge, so does the meaning of the movie's title.

Curious construction, but an oddly desynchronized timeline, which is one major reason I downgrade my rating of this film. It's not obvious to my naive viewer's eye what value this asynchronous approach serves, other than confusion. Perhaps it's a back-handed way to coerce the audience into paying closer attention. Or maybe it's a way of introducing a chronological form of babble into the timeline, to make it consistently inconsistent.

The acting is decent, and is probably best done by the non-big names: some of the Moroccan and Japanese characters are complex, multifaceted and rather interesting people. On the other hand, the relationship between Pitt and Blanchett's characters does not seem especially demanding, except perhaps physically. And I suffer an observer's "ugly American" syndrome watching some of the other passengers on the bus.

(3-Dec-06)

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