Babel

A slow moving character piece, Babel is not for everyone. I questioned my involvement in the film several times, but was captured fully when Rinko Kikuchi and Inarritu brought me along on her drug induced parade. The film is at times alternately beautiful and bleak. The film does not instill gladness on the viewer (or I believe it does not intend to do so). What it does intend, I think, is to demonstrate the gulfs we've built between us and our cultures and how language is connects and separates us. Misunderstandings abound and people cry. The emotion is real and wrenching. The plight of Rinko's character left me speechless, struggling to find the words to describe how I felt. where the film had taken me. And that sums up the movie: the emotions it stirs are confusing and confounding. And that is wonderful.

****