Food, drink, film and other random thoughts from The Lone Star State.

Monday, January 22, 2007

Interlocking Chaos

Balal (Hebrew): to confuse or confound. Closely associated to this word.



Everyone knows the Tower Of Babel story, right? Post-deluge, the people of the city of Babel attempted to erect the Tower Of Babel to reach to heaven, which angered G-d, so, poof, he made each person speak a different language, effectively stopping the project cold. I suppose some elements of that biblical story are alive and well in this film, particularly considering its odd collection of locations: Morocco, Mexico and Japan.

With a cast including Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett and Gael Garcia Bernal, you would expect them to be the anchors of the film. They are good but they all pale in comparison to the Moroccan Father, Mexican Nanny, and IMHO, the total show-stealer, the deaf-mute Japanese Student. The girl playing the deaf-mute, Rinko Kikuchi, never says a word but her performance will lodge itself somewhere in the back of your throat and stay there for 2 1/2 hours, she's amazing!

Babel seems to play on a dichotomy; it uses initially disjoint but ultimately interlocking stories in each country to show how we are all fundamentally connected through the human experience yet fatally segmented by its language and interpretation.



9.0/10

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8 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yet another film I want to see that I havent. It sounds like a great premise and seems to have gotten the attention during this award season.
Do you get the reviewer screener tapes like Ebert and Roeper you can slide my way?? ;)

7:53 AM

 
Blogger Jim said...

LOL, unfortuantely no Jason but occassionally I bully my way into advanced screenings :)

8:22 AM

 
Blogger ryan charisma said...

"occassionally I bully my way into advanced screenings"

- oh so butch. I may have to go 'touch myself' now.

4:14 PM

 
Blogger Jim said...

Knock yourself out, Ryan :)

5:50 PM

 
Blogger Gavin Elster said...

I wonder if this film would have been popular if Brad Pitt and Kate whazherface were NOT in it. I found this movie reinforced my fear of travel

10:22 PM

 
Blogger Gavin Elster said...

Holy cow I cannot remove my post to correct my spelling error. OOOH I hate this new version of blogger! Damn it I have to spell everything right THE FIRST TIME! You know that is not easy for me and my 9th grade education.

10:24 PM

 
Blogger Jim said...

Yeah Gavin, I think Pitt, Blanchett and Bernal were the headliners that brought people in ... but it was the lesser knowns that gave the award winnging performances.

9:54 AM

 
Blogger Jim said...

What spelling error? (whazherface is just a regional flavor of whats her face :)

9:54 AM

 

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