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BJs Grade:

D+

Horrible, horrible film. I cant believe I decided to give this trainwreck a chance.

I got to see this again, this time in whole, without falling asleep...


This statement, as a sweeping one is absolutely wrong.

Communication is not a tired subject, in evidence, all of the people who have wrote in saying that the Japanese section of the film is the best... and it is the best. It carries the theme much more than the convoluted other 2/3 of this boring mess of a film.

The other elements of the film just don't come together. There is about 5 minutes of interest in the "Mexico" scene and the Morocco section of the film drives home the point by the time the boy shoots the bus, which is in the first five minutes.

Wrap this up in Iñárritu's inability to tell a story without the gimmick of the non-linear structure, and you just have a mess which ends up going nowhere. Not to mention the fact that the stories end rather weakly...

1. The Japan story ends in a way that straight out of Lost In Translation
2. The American story doesn't even come to a natural emotional end but by a television news broadcast
3. The kids are never shown after they are left in the desert, we can only assume they are okay. I loved the part where the cop said that the "father in Morocco was very angry". Yeah, no shit. I would be mad too if I was out riding around the desert, leaving my kids home alone with an illegal immigrant nanny who does even tell them that "oh, like, next week is my son's wedding so I gotta find something to do with the kids!".

Is it bad? Kind of. Is it great? No. It's an embarrassment of a film to be nominated for Best Picture and this year they could probably not have done worse unless they nominated Bobby (heck, I liked Flags of our Fathers more than this).

There's yet another reason why the Japan section of the film works as a concept, and it's the fact that it's the only section of the film which doesn't take some sort of dig at the U.S. Yeah, we get it. Americans ARE BAD PEOPLE AND WE ALL SHOULD BE SHOT. We label everything as "terrorist" and then the poor immigrants are forced to jump across the border and walk through the desert. We shelter our "whitebread souless kids" from chickens getting their heads ripped off and lush culturally relevant wedding festivals.

We fucking get it already.

Going to start watching it now...

I'm nervous.

Oh no! With the DVD release this week, I knew it'd only be a matter of time till somebody dredged up this slop...

I have no insightful feelings on the film - Andaroo summed them up better than I could've thought of doing.

The only thing I can add is that for a film that's supposed to be character driven, none of the characters are interesting. And I know this has been beaten to death, but what in this movie screams Oscar? The theme? Okay I guess, but I believe many other films that weren't even nominated got their point across much clearer and powerfully (I can't believe I'm saying this, but Borat is a prime example). The acting by Adriana Barraza, Rinko Kikuchi? One hams it up while the other acts vulnerable? Wow! - Edit: Now that I think about it more, Kikuchi was very good. Oscar worthy? Maybe because the field was so limited this year, but her performance didn't hit me emotionally.

This was just a mess.

D+

I don't have much to add here, but yeah, this movie in no way, shape or form deserved to get nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. The technical aspects of the film were good (Cinematography was particularly good, and the score was decent), but the script was a complete and utter mess. I think I'd be more mad if the Screenplay won than if the film won Picture.

I'd probably rate the stories overall something like this:

Morocco family - * (How anyone could find any part of this story redeemable outside of the nice shots of the Moroccan desert is well beyond me)
Mexico - *½ (Was okay until they tried reentering America; after that the story just went haywire)
Morocco tourists - **½ (Okay and watchable, outside of the bedpan/make-out bit)
Japan - *** (The scenes where she EXPRESSES HERSELF through sex aside, this at least had great technical work and a great central perf to save it)
Overall: **/****

Blah.

Babel

I got my BB rental in today and finally watched Babel. I thought it was interesting throughout and I liked the interconnectivity of the story lines. I felt the Japan storyline although being interesting as part of the film had the least to do with the overall weaving of the stories. The strongest part was the piece involving Amelia and her travel between Mexico and the US. The piece involving the moroccan family I also liked but the masturbation scene had me perplexed. It was sad how their part of the story ended but apparently they shoot first and ask questions later over there. The piece with the american couple was very throwaway but it was the fuse to the whole film but any named actors could have played those roles. In addition, the GG nod for Brad Pitt was a bit ridiculous after seeing the film as he didn't really much in the film anyway. The last scene with him in particular at the phone talking with his son seemed especially unnecessary. I did like the foreign flavor of Japan and Mexico and the use of authentic spanish music and the view of Japanese downtown nightlife. The next to last scene with Amelia and the immigration agent I'm assuming was very sad to see and obviously layered with social commentary but in the end she was breaking the law continously and she knew it. How remorseful must one be regardless of how long she was in the US? Overall, I thought it was an engaging film and it leaves you with some moments to discuss and others pass on.

Grade - B

I'll never understand why Babel is so hated on this forum. I'm glad there are supporters here and there, but mostly it's trashed without mercy.

Well....... how do I put this? I thought it was pretty solid.

I didnt even really wanna see the film after all the hate it's been receiving, but the Oscars are tomorrow so I said what the hell, i'll give it a go and im glad I did.

All the negative points made are valid and I agree with them to an extent (like Baumer's views on the film) but the film was just so trancending and intoxicating in a sense, that the flaws (and there sure as hell are some) are kinda somewhat excused, it helps too when you have someone like González Iñárritu helming the film whose way of telling a story and the flow of his films are much more riveting and richening then Paul Haggis (Crash).

When it comes to what story follows the title and the sense of the film the best it's gotta be the deaf Japanese girl, it by no means makes it the best storyline though, the connections between her story arch and the grand scheme of the film is so minor that it really takes away from the point of her particular story. Morroco with the boys and their father to me was the most riveting of all, it flowed well and didnt have the artsy type vibe the movie would go into one too many times throughout.

All in all, surprisingly I ended up enjoying the film and though it's message is just like Crash a flawed message and one that cheats the audience and somewhat wants to make us look dumber, it was still a story I enjoyed for the most part.

Grade - B

^Probably the best review so far. I agree (almost) completely...

I still think this is a great film.

Did you really hate it that much? I thought you gave it like a C-ish grade or something.

I'm really surprised a lot of the same people that hated Crash hate this film, too. To me, Babel is the very antithesis of Crash. Yeah, they're both heavy handed and sort of embarrassing in moments (the kid smashing the rifle in Babel gave me those "I'm embarrassed to be here right now" goosebumps, for example), but Babel isn't nearly as manipulative, shallow, and disgusting as Crash.

I loved Crash, hated Babel -- go figure...



Actually, now I wonder what the distribution of people would be like in a poll with the following options:

1. Loved Crash, Hated Babel.
2. Loved Babel, Hated Crash.
3. Loved both.
4. Hated both.

Okay, okay, I'm curious enough to start that poll: Love & Hate: The Babel/Crash Poll...

Any predictions as to the results?

I do agree that Babel seems to be the complete opposite of Crash.

I don't really do reviews anymore but I did feel like I needed to post here. With so muc negativity there's need to be something to balance things out. The technical aspects of the film were all great, cinematography in particular. The score worked very weel although it did seem to be very similar to both 21 grams and amores perros. and as a whole i found the film to be very engaging. the thing that worked least for me was brad pitt's performance. he was great in those quiter scenes, his facial expressions were all right but as soon as he started screaming, i wasn't buying it. so in a film with great performances all around i did find his performance a bit dissapointing.

B+

And if we're going to talk Oscar I wouldn't normally find B+ worthy of best picture, but I would grade The Departed the same. Little Miss sunshine just above that. So unless I end up finding Letter from Iwo Jima to be absolutely amazing I think Babel is just as worthy of the award as the other films.

I loved Crash and hated Babel.

So there.

An utter mess of a film, redeemed somewhat by some good performances, but overall just not very good. The multiple stories never feel connected outside of their base narrative elements, and none of them resolve satisfyingly. The Japan story is by far the best, mostly due to Kikuchi's performance, but it has its problems as well. The two Moroccan stories are okay, with Cate being completely wasted and the kids being pretty annoying. And the Mexico story was a disaster, full of stupid characters doing even stupider things. A nice score, some good direction, and an occasional great scene cannot save this film from catastrophe. Nowhere near a Best Picture-quality film.

Just because Babel isn't as heavy handed as Crash doesn't automatically make it a great movie. Sure there's a lot less fire and a lot less explosions, it's filmed well and the acting is better, there's less pointless crying and more vagina.

Babel isn't cinematic abortion cast all over the screen like so many rage infected monkeys set loose in planned parenthood, but one would think a film with so obvious a message (I mean... the title alone...) could pull together in an engaging/cohesive storyline which made sense and didn't follow Iñárritu's pointless narrative ejaculation.

I would say both are similar in their themes to an extent but bad/not good (or in the case of Crash, horrendously awful) for different reasons.

Babel puts the questions of communication on the table but does absolutely nothing with them. Crash (in its favor) at least tried to go somewhere with it, even it was into looneyland at mach 10.

What a bizarre description.

B


Well, I'm in neither of the love/hate camps. I thought the movie was well-meant and partly well-executed, but the way some storylines evolved could have been done so much better with some better editing and with more hard focus. In that respect the movie reminds me of a similar multiplie-storylines drama - Syriana. That was another "important" movie whose message somewhat gets lost thanks to shoddy editing and unnecessary storylines. Both could have come out be so much better...

Obviously Alejandro Gonzales Iñárritu can handle films like this as he has shown with distinctly superior Amores Perros and 21 Grams in the past. With Babel he tried something more daring, something of a bigger scope...a movie paining the "Big Picture". He only partially succeeds. The narrative is dodgy at times. The Mexico storyline is a complete and utter mess and Adriana Barraza is the only one who comes out well of it (her Oscar nomination was the only nom this movie deserved). The storylines of Marokko were okay, but I can't tell how glad I am for Brad Pitt NOT getting an Oscar nod for his turn which basically consisted of crying and shouting around for 10-15 minutes. Cate Blanchett is equally wasted. There were good points to the story, but it could have been handled much better (whereas the Mexican part should have been dropped altogether).

What saves the film is the great Japan section which does not tie itself well to the overall plot, but stands by itself as a great piece of work. Rinko Kikuchi did very well, though was not quitze Oscar-worthy IMO. The final scene of the movie as well as the disco rave scene are by far the best of the entire film. I wish Kôji Yakusho (who plays her father) had been given a biger role in this, he was magnificent.

The movie just shows that the "importance" of a film's message often plays a bigger role than the film's quality when it comes to the Academy as the superior 21 Grams was left with far less noms despite being overall superior. Its "fault" was that it was much smaller and more personal. Babel is a mixed bag with some shoddy parts and some excellent others. It is certainly nowehere close to Crash quality-wise.

It's funny, you feel pretty much how I do about the film. I didn't hate the Japan story, in fact, I almost liked it. But the Mexico wedding and Brad kissing his wife after she pisses herself is just terrible. That brings the film down to a 3/10. Essentially we feel teh same way, but you give it a 7/10?

Interesting.

Hmm, frankly, I thought the same thing reading your review, heh. Well, for my part it is a weakish 7/10 leaning towards 6.5 or something like that. I just thought that the idea of the movie was very well-meant, it was the execution that faltered at times. I absolutely agree about that scene with Brad and Cate. Seriously, some folks at my showing started laughing at the scene as it was simply ridiculous. You don't just start making out heavily with your deadly bleeding wife right after she wets herself.... The Japanese story was really good, IMO. It was pretty much exactly how the rest of the film could/should have been and it could elevate the feature from a C-ish grade to a B.

I would say that it is the worst of last year's BP nominees, though (well, I have yet to see Iwo Jima, but I doubt it is worse).

i hate myself

the more i think about it, the more and more i hate this film.

D.