Babel (film)

For other uses, see Babel (disambiguation).

Babel
File:Babel poster.jpg Babel poster
Directed by	Alejandro González Iñárritu
Written by	Guillermo Arriaga
Produced by	Steve Golin Jon Kilik
Starring	Brad Pitt Cate Blanchett Gael García Bernal Kôji Yakusho Adriana Barraza Rinko Kikuchi
Music by	Gustavo Santaolalla
Distributed by	Paramount Vantage
Release dates	23 May, 2006 (premiere at Cannes) 27 October 2006 (limited) } 10 November, 2006 15 November, 2006 7 December, 2006 (MIFF) 26 December, 2006 19 January, 2007 26 January, 2007 3 March, 2007
Running time	142 min.
Countries	France Mexico USA
Languages	English Spanish Arabic French Japanese Japanese Sign Language Berber
Budget	US$25 million (estimated)

Babel is a Golden Globe Award-winning and Academy Award-nominated 2006 film by director Alejandro González Iñárritu and written by Guillermo Arriaga. It stars Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Kôji Yakusho, and Gael García Bernal. The multinarrative drama completes González Iñárritu's "death trilogy" that also consists of Amores Perros and 21 Grams.

Babel weaves together stories taking place in Morocco, Japan and Mexico. It was an international co-production between production companies based in France, Mexico and the USA. The film was first screened at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, and was later shown to audiences at the Toronto International Film Festival and the Zagreb Film Festival. It opened in selected cities in the United States on October 27, 2006, and went into full release on November 10, 2006. On January 15 2007 it won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Drama. It has also been nominated for 7 Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director.

Plot

The movie changes focus among several different situations and characters, and sometimes events are revealed out of sequence. The following plot summary has been simplified, and thus does not reflect the exact sequence of the events on screen.

In a remote location in the desert, in southern Morocco, Hassan sells a Winchester Model 70 bolt-action rifle to Abdullah, who gives it to his two teenage boys, Yussef and Ahmed, (played by local non-professional actors Boubker Ait El Caid and Said Tarchini) who look after their family's herd of goats, to kill jackals preying on the goats. To test it out, they aim from a hill at rocks and later at a bus carrying Western tourists as it passes on a highway below. Yussef hits the bus, injuring Susan (Cate Blanchett), an American woman who is travelling with her husband Richard (Brad Pitt) on vacation.

The police roughly question Hassan and beat him and his wife until they are able to tell the police that Abdullah now has the rifle. Later, the two boys confess to their father what they have done. The three flee from the police taking the rifle with them. The police shoot at them, and Yussef shoots back after his brother is shot. Yussef eventually surrenders and confesses, asking for medical treatment for his brother.

Richard and Susan were vacationing in Morocco to mend their own marital woes. It appears the sudden death of their infant son, suggested to be SIDS, has caused a strain on their marriage as they cannot communicate their frustration, guilt, and blame to each other. It is also implied that Richard left the family for a while after the infant's death. Richard and Susan are on the bus shot at by Yussef and Ahmed. When Susan is hit the bus goes to the nearest village with a doctor. The bus waits some time, but the other passengers demand that it leave, because the heat is hard to bear, and because they fear more attacks. Since Susan cannot travel by bus in her condition, the couple stays behind, together with the bus's tour guide Anwar, to wait for transport to a hospital. Political issues between the US and Morocco prevent quick help, but at last a helicopter arrives. The simplicity of the ordeal, Richard caring for and protecting Susan with the fear of losing her, brings them together.

In parallel, we see a rebellious deaf Japanese teenage girl, Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi), who is traumatised by the recent suicide of her mother and a sense that she is not seen by others which is especially exemplified by interactions with her father, Yasujiro (Kôji Yakusho), and boys her age. In response, she has started exhibiting sexually provocative behavior, such as wearing a short skirt and no underpants. She attempts unsuccessfully to initiate a sexual encounter with her dentist. She even goes so far as to try to seduce a police detective, Kenji Mamiya (Satoshi Nikaido), who visits the house to question Chieko's father about his gun. It turns out Yasujiro is an avid hunter who once went hunting in Morocco and gave his rifle to his tour guide, Hassan.

We also see Richard and Susan's Mexican nanny, Amelia (Adriana Barraza), taking care of their two young children while the couple is stranded in Morocco. Due to the parents' long vacation, she is forced to take care of the children longer than anticipated. Unable to secure help to care for them, she takes them to her son's wedding in Mexico. Rather than stay the night in Mexico with the children, she decides to make the journey back with her nephew Santiago (Gael García Bernal) who throws caution to the wind and drives while intoxicated. At the United States border crossing, the vehicle arouses the suspicions of the border guards. Despite having passports, Amelia has no letter of consent from the children's parents allowing her to take them out of the United States, and they suspect that Santiago is intoxicated.

An initial search occurs and then Santiago is told to pull over to an area designated for more intensive inspection. Santiago panics, decides to flee and drives off before the further inspection can occur. He later drops Amelia and the children off in the desert, so he can safely get rid of the police who are in pursuit of the vehicle. He never makes it back, and Amelia and children are left stranded in the desert without food or water. After a day of walking while carrying the children, out of fatigue and necessity - realizing that they all will die if she does not get help, Amelia leaves the children behind to find someone, telling them not to move. She eventually finds a U.S. Border Patrol officer. To her horror, the officer is more interested in arresting her than he is in helping her find the children. Amelia breaks down into tears out of love for the two children that she raised as her own. Only then does the officer allow her to lead him to where the children were left, but they have wandered away. She is taken back to what appears to be a Border Patrol station, where she is told the children have been found, and that she will be deported from the US as she has been working in the US illegally. Her protests that she had been in the US for 16 years and had looked after the children for the duration of their lives do not secure lenient treatment. We see her at the end meeting her son on the Mexican side of the border at the Tijuana crossing, having been removed from the United States.

Themes

The major theme of the film was how, due to cultural assumptions, people of different types are still unable to communicate to each other despite living in a modern world. The movie attempted to make each culture as human as possible by including culturally-transendent behaviors that all audiences could understand and relate to. Underneath the many different cultures and disabilities, these people are all simply doing what all humans do- a man worrying over his wife, a nanny taking care of children, young boys trying to better each other, teenagers trying to catch the attention of the opposite sex, etc. However, cultural assumptions and suspicions held against them prevent such an understanding, revealing the struggles with communication due to stereotyping that we still have today.

Production

Babel's ultimate $25 million budget came from an array of different sources and investors anchored with Paramount Vantage, which changed its name from Paramount Classics, with Babel as its premiere production and inaugural motion picture.

Director Alejandro González Iñárritu claims financing was in place long before Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett signed on to star in the film. A few insiders claim it was because Paramount was looking for a production that would be likely to contend at the Oscars, or Golden Globes.

Actress Adriana Barraza, who plays the role of Amelia, is a two-time survivor of minor heart attacks. She nonetheless carried actress Elle Fanning around in the hot desert of Mexico during the summer for five days during filming.

Authorship controversy

Following completion of principal photography on Babel, director Alejandro González Iñárritu and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga had a serious falling out. The dispute centered on the authorship of their previous film, 21 Grams. Arriaga argued that cinema is a collaborative medium, and that both he and González Iñárritu are thus the authors of the films they have worked on together. González Iñárritu claimed sole credit as the auteur of those same films, minimizing Arriaga's contribution to the pictures. As a result of this controversy, González Iñárritu banned Arriaga from attending the 2006 Cannes Film Festival screening of Babel, an act for which the director was severely criticised.[1]

Principal cast and characters

Morocco

• Brad Pitt - Richard Jones
• Cate Blanchett - Susan Jones
• Mohamed Akhzam - Anwar
• Boubker Ait El Caid - Yussef
• Said Tarchani - Ahmed
• Amit Murjani - Abdullah
• Abdelkader Bara - Hassan
• Wahiba Sahmi - Zohra

Mexico

• Adriana Barraza - Amelia
• Gael García Bernal - Santiago
• Elle Fanning - Debbie Jones
• Nathan Gamble - Mike Jones
• Clifton Collins Jr. - Police Officer at Mexican border
• Michael Peña - Off. John

Japan

• Rinko Kikuchi - Chieko
• Kôji Yakusho - Yasujiro
• Satoshi Nikaido - Detective Kenji
• Yuko Murata - Mitsu
• Shigemitsu Ogi - Dentist Chieko attempts to seduce

Box office performance

Released in seven theaters on October 27, 2006, and then released wide in 1,251 theaters on November 10, 2006, Babel has earned as of February 6, 2007, $30,033,366 in North America, and $61,312,572 in the rest of the world as of February 4, 2007, for a cumulative worldwide box office total of $91,345,938. [2]

As of of February 6, 2007, Babel has already grossed over three times as its estimated production budget of $25 million. [3][4]

Compared to his other films, Babel has surpassed González Iñárritu's 21 Grams for North American box office, as well as that film's $60 million world-wide gross boxoffice.[5]

The film was re-released (expansion) on January 19, 2007, to capitalise on award season nominations and wins.

Awards and nominations

• 79th Academy Awards:
  • Nominated: Best Motion Picture of the Year (Alejandro González Iñárritu, Jon Kilik and Steve Golin)
  • Nominated: Best Achievement in Directing (Alejandro González Iñárritu)
  • Nominated: Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role (Adriana Barraza)
  • Nominated: Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role (Rinko Kikuchi)
  • Nominated: Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen (Guillermo Arriaga)
  • Nominated: Best Achievement in Editing (Douglas Crise, Stephen Mirrione)
  • Nominated: Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score (Gustavo Santaolalla)

• Cannes Film Festival:
  • Won: Best Director (Alejandro González Iñárritu)
  • Won: François Chalais Award (a Prize of the Ecumenical Jury)
  • Nominated: Palme d'Or (Best Film)

• Golden Globe Awards:
  • Won: Best Picture - Drama
  • Nominated: Best Director (Alejandro González Iñárritu)
  • Nominated: Best Supporting Actor (Brad Pitt)
  • Nominated: Best Supporting Actress (Adriana Barraza)
  • Nominated: Best Supporting Actress (Rinko Kikuchi)
  • Nominated: Best Screenplay (Guillermo Arriaga)
  • Nominated: Best Score (Gustavo Santaolalla)

• Screen Actors Guild Awards:
  • Nominated: Best Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
  • Nominated: Best Supporting Actress (Adriana Barraza)
  • Nominated: Best Supporting Actress (Rinko Kikuchi)

• Top Ten Lists including:
  • American Film Institute Awards 2006

External links

• Official site
• Official trailer
• Babel at IMDb
• Babel Production Notes Full Production Notes
• Babel at Rotten Tomatoes
• Babel Reviews at Metacritic.com
• Babel Mansized review