Babel & The Three Amigos

The Mexicans are here. Flavour of the month (well, the past year) has been the triumvirate of The Three Amigos, Alfonso Cuaron, Guillermo del Toro, & Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. All three released critically acclaimed, moderate box office hit pictures last year, the last of which ‘Babel’ hit the UK last weekend.  

Similar to his previous outing 21 Grams (which was one of my favourite films of 2003) Inarritu weaves a number of seemingly unconnected plots together – a recently bereaved American couple on sabbatical in the desert, two rural Moroccan child brothers and their fathers acquisition of a new rifle, a Mexican maid’s attempts to get to her son’s wedding across the border and for me the most satisfying thread, a deaf mute Japanese schoolgirls coming to terms with her burgeoning sexuality – wipe that smile of your face.

Cate Blanchett is as solid as ever, and Pitt proves that when presented with the right material he can actually be bearable. The rest of the cast are comprised of new faces (with the exception of Gael García Bernal who only pops up in half a dozen scenes) which ultimately make the tales more engaging – you’re never quite sure where these stories are heading, although the connections between the stories (bar one) are obvious to detect. Rinko Kikuchi has deservedly gained an Oscar nomination, more on these soon.

Some of the critical fraternity have accused the film of simplistic moralising and being riddled with implausible coincidences – ironic really since one assumes that the same critics in the US at least gave the support and eventually the best picture award to ‘Crash‘. I can see their point, but the fine line of a reasonable element of disbelief was maintained for me. I would however concur that the Mexican maid’s story careers off into absurd territory which damages the film as a whole. This whole thread could have been dropped without detriment but I suspect the author’s political convictions got the better of them – they wanted a stab at Fortress America which could really could have been tackled in a separate picture.

Nevertheless, the overall effect was still striking for me, perhaps since my last two cinema visits have been less than satisfactory. I grabbed a copy of ‘Children of Men‘ after the movie and was not disapointed – one of the best Sci-Fi movies of recent years, and probably one of the best UK Sci-Fi movies ever. This film captured in one frame of celluloid a more chillingly plausible and gripping nightmare vision of the UK (and the world) than every insipid minute of this farce.