Babel

Hmmmmm, Babel (2006) was a film which was on television last year but I kind of forgot about it. Then my sister got it on DVD so I stole it. Really, another film with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett in it? They are like the odd star coupling in Hollywood.
Babel is a multi-plot story, following several different people of different races, bound by one event: an American tourist (Cate Blanchett) being shot in Morocco. This event tears apart these different worlds in tragic, confusing and often strange ways.
Brad Pitt and even Blanchett feel like a minor part compared to the foreign stars of this film. Most notably Rinko Kikuchi, who plays Chieko, a deaf mute Japanese teenager desperate to be loved. She handles the role with such intensity but treats it with the right amount of fragility, making her the stand out of the film. The other stand out performance was from older actress Adriana Barraza who plays Amelia, the nanny for Susan and Richard's (Blanchett and Pitt) children. She crosses the line (literally), and every time Adriana appears on screen you can tell she is over-ridden with guilt. It takes quite a bit to oout perform Pitt and Blanchett, but these two fine actresses did.
Babel is quite a powerful film, and you can tell that it takes a definite look at something that Hollywood rarely looks at: immigration, terrorism and criminality. All in the same film. An interesting, yet flawed film.
7/10