Wednesday, January 24, 2007 ‘Babel’: The most triumphant film of 2007
* Movie chosen best pic in 2007 Golden Globes
“BABEL”, a shattering drama about an American tourist shot accidentally in Morocco which sparks a chain of events, won as Best Picture (Drama) in the recently concluded 64th Golden Globe Awards. The film has also been nominated for six other Golden Globes including Best Director, Best Supporting Actress (two nominees), Best Supporting Actor (Brad Pitt), Best Original Score and Best Screenplay.
In Babel, two Moroccan boys armed with a Winchester rifle set out to look after their family's herd of goats. In the silent echoes of the desert, they decide to test the rifle but the bullet goes farther than they thought it would. In an instant, the lives of four separate groups of strangers on three different continents collide. Caught up in the rising tide of an accident that escalates beyond anyone's control are a vacationing American couple, a rebellious deaf Japanese teenager and her father, and a Mexican nanny who, without permission, takes two American children across the border. None of these strangers will ever meet; in spite of the sudden, unlikely connection between them, they will all remain isolated due to their own inability to communicate meaningfully with anyone around them.
Oscar-nominated director Alejandro González Iñárritu delivers a film that is at once intimate and epic, shot in four countries, cast with actors and non-actors. Tied by circumstance but separated by continent, culture and language, each character discovers that it is family that ultimately provides solace. It is the third film in a series of movies by González Iñárritu, which includes 2000’s critically-acclaimed Amores Perros and 2003’s 21 Grams.
The film’s title draws on the biblical story of the Tower of Babel in which God punishes mankind for its arrogance in attempting to build a tower to the heavens. As punishment, He separates mankind into different races divided by different languages, with communication greatly hindered.
In this emotional film that traverses both the deeply personal and the explosively political, the director explores with shattering realism the nature of the barriers that seem to separate humankind. In so doing, he evokes the ancient concept of “Babel” and questions its modern day implications: the mistaken identities, misunderstandings and missed chances for communication that, though often unseen, drive our contemporary lives.
“The best part of shooting Babel was that I began filming a picture about the differences between human beings - that which separates us, the physical barriers and those of language - but along the way I began realizing that I was making a film about that which joins us; love and pain: what makes a Japanese and a Moroccan happy can be very different, but that which makes us miserable is the same for everybody” says the director.
To bring to life the many lost and searching characters of Babel, González Iñárritu recruited a remarkably diverse cast made up of both actors and non-actors, superstars and locals, many of whom did not share a common language let alone a common experience -- yet each contributed something unique to the film. For González Iñárritu, working with such a wide-ranging cast was an exhilarating challenge. “Directing actors is difficult. Directing actors in a language other than your own is much more difficult. Now, directing non-actors in a language you don't understand is the greatest challenge a director can have,” says the director.
He began with the American couple who, still reeling from the heartbreaking loss of a child, find themselves struggling to survive while on vacation in the mountains of Morocco, González Iñárritu cast two of Hollywood's most sought-after actors: box-office star Brad Pitt (in a role that earned him a Golden Globe nomination) and Academy Award winner Cate Blanchett.
Making the film was itself a transformational journey for González Iñárritu. It was, he says, his greatest filmmaking challenge to date and one that changed everyone involved in a profound way. “Babel was born of a moral need to purge myself and to speak of the things that were filling my heart and mind: the incredible and painful worldwide paradoxes that affected close and distant lands, finally pouring out as individual tragedies,” said González Iñárritu.
Award-winning actors Gael Garcia Bernal and Koji Yakusho, as well as Adriana Barraza and Rinko Kikuchi (who both earned Golden Globe nominations for their supporting roles in the film), are part of the international ensemble of actors and non-professional actors from Morocco, Tijuana and Tokyo, who enrich Babel's take on cultural diversity and enhance its powerful remarks on cultural links and frontiers. Babel has also receive more than 100 awards and nominations in more than 29 film festival worldwide including Best Director in the 2006 Cannes Film Festival.
Catch the mesmerizing drama of Babel as it opens on January 24 at your favorite cinemas. Distributed by Viva International Pictures. (Press release)
