Babel (film)
Babel is a 2006 psychological drama film directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu and written by Guillermo Arriaga.[5] The multi-narrative drama features an ensemble cast and portrays interwoven stories taking place in Morocco, Japan, Mexico, and the United States. An international co-production among companies based in the United States, Mexico and France, the film completes Arriaga and Iñárritu's Death Trilogy, following Amores perros (2000) and 21 Grams (2003).[6]
For the 1999 Canadian/French fantasy film, see Babel (1999 film).Babel
by
- Guillermo Arriaga
- Alejandro González Iñárritu
- Alejandro González Iñárritu
- Jon Kilik
- Steve Golin
- Paramount Vantage
- Anonymous Content
- Zeta Film
- Central Films
- Media Rights Capital
- Paramount Pictures[1](English-speaking territories and Latin America)
- StudioCanal[2] (France; through Mars Distribution)
- Summit Entertainment (International)[3]
- 23 May 2006 (Cannes)
- 27 October 2006 (United States and Mexico)
143 minutes
- United States
- Mexico
- Morocco
- France
- English
- Spanish
- Arabic
- Japanese
- Japanese Sign Language
- Berber languages
$25 million
$135.3 million[4]
Babel was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, where González Iñárritu won the Best Director Award. The film was later screened at the Toronto International Film Festival. It opened in selected cities in the United States on 27 October 2006, and went into wide release on 10 November 2006. Babel received positive reviews and was a financial success, grossing $135 million worldwide. It won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama, and received seven Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, and two nominations for Best Supporting Actress (Adriana Barraza and Rinko Kikuchi). It won the award for Best Original Score (Gustavo Santaolalla).
Themes[edit]
Babel can be analyzed as a network narrative in which its characters, scattered across the globe, represent different nodes of a network that is connected by various strands. The movie not only incorporates quite a large number of characters but they also are, as is typical for network narratives, equally important. It is noticeable that Babel has multiple protagonists who, as a consequence, make the plot more complex in relation to time and causality.
One of the central connections between all of the main characters is the rifle. Over the course of the movie, the viewer finds out that Yasujiro Wataya visits Morocco for a hunting trip and gives the rifle as a gift to his guide, Hassan Ibrahim, who then sells it to Abdullah from where it gets passed on to his sons. Susan Jones, in turn, is shot with that very same rifle which also has a tragic impact on Amelia Hernández' life. It is observable that "all characters are affected by the connections created between them – connections that influence both their individual trajectories as characters and the overall structure of the plot".[8]
It shows how a single object can serve as a connection between many different characters (or nodes in a network) who do not necessarily need to know each other. Even though the rifle is not passed on any further, it continues to influence the characters' lives in significant ways. This demonstrates how the smallest actions on one side of the world can ultimately lead to a complete change of another person's life elsewhere, without there being any form of direct contact between the two (also see Butterfly effect).
It also creates a small-world effect, in which "characters will intersect again and again"[9] either directly or indirectly and mostly by accident. As Maria Poulaki observes, characters in network narratives "meet and separate not because of the characters' purposeful actions but as an outcome of pure chance".[8]
Production[edit]
Writing[edit]
In one of the earlier drafts of the script written by Guillermo Arriaga, the Japanese deaf girl was originally a Spanish girl who had recently become blind.
Earlier the main leading couple problems were infidelities, but a child death was introduced to allow Pitt to better understand his character.
According to Alejandro González Iñárritu, the locations of the film played a key role in his life. He made a life changing trip to Morocco at 17. In his previous travels to Japan, he was convinced to return with a camera someday, and finally his own move from Mexico to the USA was also present in the film.
Asked about the idea for the film, which is credited to Arriaga and Gonzalez Inarritu, the former said, "It is credited to him because I had this story first placed only in two countries. He asked to have it in four and that's why he has the 'idea by' credit." Asked also if the idea of setting Babel's two other stories in Morocco and Japan was from Gonzalez Iñárritu, Arriaga answered "No, he said put it wherever you want".[10]
Casting[edit]
When the 24-year-old Rinko Kikuchi auditioned for the role of Chieko, Iñarritu was surprised by her talent but was reluctant due to her not being deaf. The casting process continued with hundred of actresses in the following nine months, with Kikuchi ultimately winning the role a week before filming began.[11][12][13]
At the volleyball match in Tokyo, most of the audience spectators were played by deaf persons.[14][15]
Brad Pitt backed out of a role in The Departed, which he produced, in order to film Babel.[16]
The film extras portraying migrants in the Mexico shooting were real immigrants hired by the production company.[15]
Funding[edit]
Babel's $25 million budget came from an array of different sources and investors anchored with Paramount Vantage.[17]
Shooting[edit]
Filming locations included Ibaraki and Tokyo in Japan, Mexico (El Carrizo,[11] Sonora, and Tijuana), Morocco (Ouarzazate and Taguenzalt – a Berber village in the foothills of the Atlas Mountains, built into the rocky gorges of the Draa's valley[11]), the US state of California (San Diego), and Drumheller in the Canadian province of Alberta.
Principal photography began using 16mm film[18] on 2 May and wrapped on 1 December 2005. Several different types of film stock, including three-perf Super 35mm, 35mm, 18.5 anamorphic, were later utilized to give each location a distinct look.[1] After filming, director Alejandro González Iñárritu and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga had a falling-out regarding the authorship of their previous film, 21 Grams.[19] Arriaga argued that cinema is a collaborative medium, and that both he and González Iñárritu are thus the authors of the films they have worked on together. González Iñárritu claimed sole credit as the auteur of those same films, minimizing Arriaga's contribution to the pictures. Following this dispute, Iñárritu banned Arriaga from attending the 2006 Cannes Film Festival screening of Babel, an act for which the director was criticized.[20]
Reception[edit]
Box office[edit]
Released in seven theaters on 27 October 2006, and then released nationwide in 1,251 theaters on 10 November 2006, Babel grossed $34.3 million in North America, and $101 million in the rest of the world, for a worldwide box office total of $135.3 million, against a budget of $25 million.[4][17] Babel is the highest-grossing film of González Iñárritu's Death Trilogy (including Amores perros and 21 Grams[35]), both in North America and worldwide.[36][37]
Critical response[edit]
Babel received generally positive reviews. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 69% based on 205 reviews, with an average rating of 6.80/10, making the film a "Fresh" on the website's rating system. The critical consensus states that "In Babel, there are no villains, only victims of fate and circumstance. Director Alejandro González Iñarritu weaves four of their woeful stories into this mature and multidimensional film."[38] At Metacritic, the film received a weighted average score of 69/100, based on 38 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews".[39] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B-" on an A+ to F scale.[40]
Film critic Roger Ebert included Babel in his The Great Movies list, stating that the film "finds Inarritu in full command of his technique: The writing and editing moves between the stories with full logical and emotional clarity, and the film builds to a stunning impact because it does not hammer us with heroes and villains but asks us to empathize with all of its characters."[41]