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CS Weekly Archive > DVD > 10/05/07
What We've Got Here is
Failure to Communicate
by dennis sampson
Babel (Collector's Edition)
Guillermo Arriaga
Based on an idea by Guillermo Arriaga and Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu (latter also directed)
 
 
Babel tells four loosely interconnecting stories—an American couple (Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett) on vacation in Morocco in a potentially deadly emergency, the Moroccan farmer (Mustapha Rachidi) and his children responsible for said urgent situation, the American couple's illegal immigrant housekeeper/nanny (Adriana Barraza) taking her employers' two young children (Nathan Gamble and Elle Fanning) from the United States to her son's wedding in Mexico, and a Japanese deaf-mute girl (Rinko Kikuchi) in Tokyo, desperately trying to connect to the world. Guillermo Arriaga's sprawling screenplay ultimately adds up to an intensely dramatic character study that's focused—like the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel that inspired it—on miscommunication. From the American husband pleading with his fellow tourists not to leave him and his injured wife in a bleak village to the Mexican housekeeper's desperate search to find the children she was separated from, the movie preaches that all emotion is universal (further, it expounds that it's too bad all communication isn't). But while the human drama resonates and creates a strong audience connection, the overall narrative of the film falls into an obviousness that somehow avoids cliché, but still manages to be no less surprising (or even dramatic). These characters deserved better. Although labeled as a "collector's edition," the only supplemental is a feature-length production diary by director Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu that details the making of the film, but pays very little attention to the script.
Babel (Collector's Edition)
Paramount Home Video
Rated R; 143 min.
$34.99
Buy it now
Dennis Sampson is a commercial production coordinator and unproduced screenwriter. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his better half, Susan, and their dog Tripp.
Babel (Collector's Edition) courtesy Paramount Home Video
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