I liked this movie and I feel incredibly artsy fartsy saying that. I'm quite sure that if it hadn't been for the fact that I've already seen hundreds of movies, I probably wouldn't have understood this one at all. Having said that I almost didn't understand this movie. It was spoken in six different languages and the subtitles were in Italian. I must have missed half the words and weirdly I think that might have added to my enjoyment of the movie. I just assumed the dialogue was perfect and whatever was happening on the screen was completely motivated.
Let's see, this movie had three stories. All only distantly connected, the Japanese story hardly connected at all to the other two. We had the Mexican-American story. The American-Morroccan story, and the Japanese story. Six languages, Spanish, English, Morrocan, French, Japanese, Japanese Sign Language. The coolest thing about this movie is that it respects our interest in different cultures. We get great cultural views from a Japanese dance club to a great Mexican wedding. If you can be interested in being a 'fly on the wall' as different kinds of people go about their lives then this movie is for you. If you're expecting something like Crash, which was what this movie was compared to, then you're in for some dissapointment. The storylines run parralel but never intersect. I wanted them to, but then again I liked each of the stories enough that I really didn't care in the end. I finally got why the movie was called Babel half way through. Language barriers.
The only two main actors I recognized were Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. Both very good performances. Brad Pitt's characther reminds me alot of George Clooney's charachter in last year's Syriana. They both have beards and find themselves in a Muslim country among other things. He might get a nomination. I don't know. They gave the Oscar to Clooney didn't they.
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