Not Coming to a Theater Near You

Babel / USA / Mexico / 2006

A steaming shitbomb of a movie, the cinematic equivalent of “We Are the World,” starring Brad Pitt as Kenny Rogers, the obvious moral of which is that stupid people live all over the world — not just in America. Americans, of course, are the most shallow, self-serving, and powerful, but apparently not so powerful that they can get medical help to one of their nationals in Morocco (read: hostile Arab wasteland) without a couple of Very Famous Actors crying, gnashing their teeth, etc., for two-plus hours. But let’s not pick on an easy target: non-Americans are just as thickheaded apparently. Mexicans are either drunk-driving party animals that flinch at the merest suggestion of border control or dimwitted au pairs who occasionally leave their charges in the desert to rot; Arabs are people too, it would seem, though they are mostly toothless and incestuous, usually spending their elderly years doing bong-rips in dimly lit hovels; and the Japanese — don’t get me started! Actually, the last of these episodes — clumsily sutured into the six-degrees-of-separation quilt-narrative by some primitive Moroccan veteranarian, no doubt — is more or less ok, coming across as the greatest after-school special on horny deaf teenagers ever made. But the rest of the film is so condescending, so painfully self-important, so laughably contrived that it is 100% guaranteed to sweep the Oscars, maybe even be elected president of the United States.

Best movie of 2006, eh, Stephen Holden?

by Leo Goldsmith | Source: Paramount Vantage DVD Screener
27 Dec 2006 2:08 PM | Comments (15)

Comments / 15 total / Submit Comment

1. rob / 27 December 2006 / 3:56 PM / URL

   Your first sentence alone made me laugh out loud. I’ll be sure to read the rest of it ASAP, as holiday guests are on the way.

2. Chiranjit / 28 December 2006 / 7:23 AM / URL

   I, for one, welcome our new condescendingly self-important Oscar sweeping overlords.

   I’ve loathed everything Inarritu has ever done other than his segment of 11’09”01, so you pretty much had me at “Kenny Rogers.”

3. Mark / 28 December 2006 / 8:22 AM

   I agree 100% with your assesment of the Morrocan and Mexican segments, total complete lack of common sense by every character and everything is laughably implausible.

   But I think you are being overly harsh on the Japanese storyline. It’s incredibly well done and almost saves the film for me. Rinko Kikuchi’s performance is absolutely top shelf and it lacks most of the utterly embarassing plausibility issues that cripple the rest of the film. If only that segment had been the whole film or maybe a short. The club scene alone made me forgive much of the rest. I give Stephen Mirrione much of the credit.

4. rob / 28 December 2006 / 9:03 AM / URL

   More thoughts. I almost liked the Japanese segment of the film as well. It certainly felt the least contrived – despite its after-school-special aura – at least until it was roped into the other storylines via the sold gun and ended with that ridiculous pan out from the balcony that seemed made solely to top Crash’s conclusion for sheer silliness. But this was also the most disappointing film of the year for me; I haven’t seen Amores Perros, but I love 21 Grams, a film that I thought was top-notch in exposing the rhythms of an entangled world of chaos slowly turning inward on itself. The fractured editing didn’t work all the time for me, but the end effect was well worth even the weak spots in my book. This thing, however, is less like a happened-upon spiderweb than it is self-designed chart. And the musical montages are sickeningly pretentious.

5. leo / 28 December 2006 / 11:21 AM / URL

   You mean calling it “the greatest after-school special on horny deaf teenagers ever made” sounds like faint praise?

   To be fair, it is mostly well executed (and acted) until the absurd connection to the rest of the film is dropped in. (Jesus, the safari photo wasn’t even convincing, let alone the events it was intended to depict.) And the club scene is quite fun to watch. Here and in the Mexican wedding scene, Iñárritu seems to have the most fun, and these scenes have the kind of intensity that Amores Perros so effectively immerses one in (whatever one ultimately thinks of that film). But unfortunately he usually spoils this intensity with some unconvincing tragedy or other.

   That said, it also occurs to me that, once the Arab, Japanese, and Mexican worlds seem familiar enough, deafness becomes the final frontier of exoticisim, and the complexity of Chieko’s character just appears pointlessly overdetermined (deafness, teenageness, Japaneseness, dead-motherness). So, while I concede that it’s an engaging and mostly sympathetic part of an otherwise dreadful movie, its awkward placement in the whole and especially its ultimately contrived message (vis-a-vis Brad, Gael, and the gang) fail to win me over.

6. Tyler W / 2 January 2007 / 1:23 PM / URL

   So if Pitt is Kenny Rogers, then is Cate Blanchett Michael Jackson? That might be a good movie. I haven’t seen Babel yet, but I pretty much loathed 21 Grams—I think that Innaritu’s theme of interconnectedness wouldn’t be bad in the hands of a less heavy-handed director, but that movie quickly became about nothing more than a writer and director’s own tangled web of fatalistic plotlines. 21 Grams felt more like an exercise in authorial sadism than anything else. Sounds as though Babel takes this to an even higher degree. I’ll probably avoid it.

7. rob / 2 January 2007 / 3:18 PM / URL

   Considering the progression of my own taste (ever since I really got into film, I learned – more than anything else – that your opinions become practically irrelevant after almost any period of time has passed; rarely do I watch the same movie twice, even if it’s for the tenth time), I might revisit 21 Grams and turn out to hate it after this time. Babel definitely felt fatalistic and contrived, but my hindsight on three separate viewings of 21 Grams tells me otherwise; perhaps the even more fractured narrative and smaller ensemble helped diffuse Innaritu’s sense of authority. Also, the actions taken by the different characters in that film seemed far more natural and everyday, whereas Babel relied pretty regularly on outright stupidity. Nevertheless, the difference in my mind at this point is night and day. I don’t know if I’ll ever touch Babel again, but I would like to do a more practical re-evaluation.

8. Chiranjit / 15 January 2007 / 8:40 PM / URL

   Well, Leo’s predictions seem to be accurate as Inarritu’s Live-Aid-inspired ballad seems to have won a key primary on its way to the White House.

9. clubnut / 17 January 2007 / 12:46 AM

   I must agree with the opening lines of this review. So glad i didn’t pay to see it. God bless those stupid, backward foreigners who make pirate copies of movies.

   But i digress. What i really want to know was the name/artist/dj of the track from the japanese night club scene? WHAT A ROCKING TRACK. It was the only moment of the movie i enjoyed. I’d really like to know who it was

10. clubnut / 17 January 2007 / 1:13 AM

    I must agree with the opening lines of this review. So glad i didn’t pay to see it. God bless those stupid, backward foreigners who make pirate copies of movies.

    But i digress. What i really want to know was the name/artist/dj of the track from the japanese night club scene? WHAT A ROCKING TRACK. It was the only moment of the movie i enjoyed. I’d really like to know who it was

11. tom / 17 January 2007 / 3:00 AM / URL

    Wow, he really liked that ROCKING TRACK a lot.

    I’ve not seen this and I very much doubt I will (having also hated everything the director has done so far), but all this talk of Kenny Rogers reminded me of this priceless gem.

12. Adam B. / 2 May 2007 / 12:17 PM / URL

    An interesting little news story from Tokyo:

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070502/ap_en_mo/film_babel_warning

    Coincidence? I think not.

13. David / 30 May 2007 / 7:27 PM

    You can’t tell someone or teach someone (like Leo) about this films perfection. You either see it or you don’t. Its like you can’t explain to someone what love is, or what its like to be drunkenly silly, or what its like to feel jealously heart broken, or what its like to be truly alive. This film is not for people who learn about life only (and only, I like theory) though theory and/or books (I like books too). This film is for people who have lived and been alive and see the glory. Its almost a non-discussion. Leo, you are much luckier and much more condemned than we lover’s of this film. BTW I voted for Bush. xxx

14. leo / 31 May 2007 / 8:15 AM / URL

    Since being paralyzed by a pre-teen Moroccan sniper at a tender age, I have spent the bulk of my life a shell of a human being, subsisting entirely on nutritional cocktails supplied to me intravenously and learning and communicating to the world entirely through computers. Google Earth tells me all I have ever needed to know about other places. Movies are beamed directly into my brain using the latest late-90s virtual reality technology. I also read a lot of theory.

    But you, David, have sent a gust of life into my hollow husk of a body. Having never been in love, drunk, heartbroken, or (dare I say it?) even truly alive, I would never have known that the world is in fact not a rich tapestry of complex and unexplainable phenomena but rather a trite, highly contrived system of shallow stereotypes. I would never have know, that is, unless you (and Mr. Inarritu) had not condescended to tell me.

    Thank you, friend. If my tear ducts still worked, I would cry sweet, blissful tears.

15. leo / 31 May 2007 / 8:17 AM / URL

    But seriously, dude. “It’s almost a non-discussion”? Does any sentence better summarize Bush’s entire term of office?