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In Reply to: RE: If you predicted each of the plotlines' outcomes, kudos on your mindreading abilities posted by Jazz Inmate on February 19, 2008 at 11:50:03
...in 2000's Amores Perros, and to some extent in 21 Grams. IMO he did the same sort overlapping, complex story lines more powerfully in these earlier films. (BTW, I would imagine most audiences would find certain imagery these two films much more "disturbing" than Babel. But they are also much better movies.)
Inarritu (who, along with Alfonso Cuaron and Guillermo del Toro, is one of the celebrated "Three Amigos") is certainly one of the most talented directors in the world. His nerve and cinematic chops are beyond question. He surely deserves all praise for tackling this multilayered, interconnected, complex narrative with its interweaving stories, overlapping time lines and disparate characters.
Parts of Babel are certainly beautifully told (such as the Japanese story). But some of it feels rather trite (such as the Mexican chapter). Where Inarritu's previous films grabbed me and held me byt the throat for their entire length, Babel often annoyed and irritated me, taking me out of the story by calling attention to its own impotance. I bought Amores Perros right from the git go. I didn't buy Babel, not completely, not ever, although I wanted very much to like it.
For me, the script is the weak spot, never quite succeeding in tying this ambitious film together. I found the American characters in particular rather one dimensional and their reactions/responses often implausible. Too often Babel strains for its effects where the previous films created a more telling emotional truth.
For this I place much of the blame on Inarritu's close collaborator, screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga. Arriaga also wrote Amores Perros and 21 Grams, but it seems to me he bit off more than he could chew with Babel. Where Amores perros was content to trust the audience and let the characters and story tell us everything we needed to know, Babel keeps uderlining the message and adding exclamation points, just to be sure we "get it".
I get it, I just don't like it.
Come back, Inarritu, I miss your unique voice - leave the baggage behind this time.
Follow Ups:
What made it work for me was to view the separate storylines as unrelated vignettes. Thankfully, Babel did not try to force a greater link between them than the meager thread that existed. But you have to admit, the common denominator of desperation was communicated brilliantly, if not in the script than in the skill of the actors and director, whose chops are immense, as you say. Yes, I like Del Toro and Cauron very much.
Maybe what made Babel work for me is that I had such low expectations going in. I had heard it was a mess and didn't work at all. And I was pleasantly surprised.
-------------"I have found that if you love life, life will love you back." -Arthur Rubinstein (1887-1982)
...that Pan & CoM were slighted in critical polls and award noms by what I suspected was 2006's "Crash". And maybe I was hoping for too much.Babel is a much better movie than Crash, a film I also found pretentious and unsubtle. But after the brilliance of Amores Perros I was really hoping for something special.
OTOH, I was more than willing to give this movie a fair shot, since I'm a big fan of the Three Amigos and Inarritu's previous efforts.
Like I said above, if you don't swing hard, you never knock one out of the park. Inarritu swung hard - and IMO missed. But I like that he keeps on swinging.
The next movie I think will be key for him.
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