Babel

Alejandro González Iñárritu has reached the zenith of his mosaic-laden journey. I would like to say that he took the best from Amores Perros and 21 Grams and combined them together, but that is not the case. Still, Babel remains the director's best work. He managed to avoid a bit of the unfortunate confusion from his previous film, endowed all the storylines with emotional richness, and mixed everything in a way that I could barely catch my breath right from the first second, for over two hours. And it wouldn't be Iñárritu if there wasn't some message present in his film. Babel almost screams for humanity, solidarity, and help, which in some moments brings tears to the viewer's eyes, and in others simply pins them to their seats. (02/27/2007)

What Babel clearly excels at is the chilling and haunting music along with the perfect sense of scene by the director and the entire creative team. There isn't much talking and everything important is said by the scene itself, the background music or the situation itself, and it's not often that filmmaking gets me like this after a screening and make me think about the film even further. Babel is, in fact, a blend of four stories, where each one stands on its own, but gradually they all become entangled and each one manages to "grab" the viewer in a different way. Having said that, I have to admit that this is definitely not a film for everyone and even I found it harder to get through the first half, which is just terribly slow and plodding, but once I got through it, I was rewarded with a gritty, authentic emotional experience on all four fronts, and the finale still resonated within me for some time. Ordinary yet chilling, and "about nothing" yet profound. Most of the credit goes to the director for his excellent talent to put his best into the scenes, and especially Gustavo Santaolalla with his background music - after this film I'm going to seek out all his work and have a nice listen. And for anyone who would also like it, I recommend Gustavo Babetti - Babel. (01/14/2024)

What I appreciate about Iñárritu is how he is able to sensitively tell the story of the hardships of an ordinary person. However, it’s also the same plot concept for the third time, which is unfortunate because about halfway through the film moves into the plane of expectation and the inevitable boredom that comes with it. This fact is reinforced by the relatively shallow and detached segment with Richard and Susan and especially the Tokyo segment, which is completely out of context. Fortunately, both are amply compensated by the story of the little Moroccan shooters (the best part of it for me). (11/04/2007)

Babel floats stylishly on the surface, but it fails to go any deeper. The content of the two main storylines comes across as half-empty, and the third storyline, though it holds the strongest potential, doesn’t add anything to them. If I gave 21 Grams four stars, I have to stick with three in this case. Nice visuals, great atmospheric music and good actors aren’t everything. P.S. Chieko should have jumped. (02/28/2007)

Three Stories, or safe betting, for the third time. Alejandro González Iñárritu delivers exactly the same film again, and to some extent, we all fell for it again. Babel is undoubtedly the most artistic film in his career – or at least tries to be in overall composition, intellectual strength, use of music and silent scenes, handheld camera… The three stories are interwoven together in a somewhat simpler and more viewer-friendly form, which does not require such precise timing and sequencing of scenes, or the precision of the editor. Unlike the director's previous film, Babel can be easily understood on the first viewing. The acting is not revolutionary, rather standard, with many impressive scenes and a formal stylization that is appropriately minimalist, with few colors. It is economical, simple, and overall raw, but it feels somewhat clichéd. (08/17/2007)