Babel

Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu
Country: USA
Year: 2006
Cast: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Rinko Kikuchi, Adriana Barraza, Gael García Bernal
Rating: **** (Masterpiece)

My dictionary tells the meaning of 'Babel' as 'a confused medley of sounds'. Could it get any more close to the essence of this gem of a film? I don't think so. This world is filled with confused souls, shouting to get their 'sounds' heard. We all have become so judgmental by nature. We are always all set to judge others making us oblivious of our own mistakes. This movie doesn't do that, for one. It opens it's big heart for all of them, understands them and most importantly, loves them for who they are.

On a different note, I would have loved to see one story from India too. After all we have enough 'life' going on here. But I believe India is largely unknown to the western world. Some academicians and Noble laureates notwithstanding.

I think this a coming-of-age movie. It's about a Ukrainian village boy who is indulging in voyeurism, about a mute-deaf Japanese girl who is yet to come to grips with the 'outside world' as well as her own desires, about the mistakes of a average Mexican boy, and a dysfunctional American family rediscovering the relationship. But eventually it's much much more than it all. It's about the cries of confused and tormented souls, misunderstood (or never really understood) by others.

Fortunately Inarritu does not choose to leave them hopeless here as he did in his first installment of this powerful and engrossing trilogy, Amores Perros. He gives them hope, hope to stand again, share their grief, their pain, their feeling of entrapment.