"Babel: stuff
"Babel is a masterpiece....a brilliant, profound and devastating film that explores the dangers and consequences of what can happen when words fail, communication ceases and all you've got left are feelings," says New York Observer critic Rex Reed, whom I respect for having laid his always-passionate, sometimes fierce opinions on the line for the last 40-something years.
"One tragic incident may have shock waves around the world, but in Babel the inability to communicate -- between cultures or even within relationships -- forms the basis of an astonishing series of interwoven stories covering the globe in ways that make you think and empathize. It is filled with haunting elements of pathos, integrity, beauty, grace and terror that are quite simply transcendent. We have two months to go, but at this point, in my opinion, I consider Babel the best film of 2006."
Reed and I have obviously parked our bicycles in the same rack, but there's a modest amount of dissent out there. Roughly a quarter of the critics are either scratching their heads or hocking lugies. (It's running about 5 Rotten Tomato points higher than Flags of Our Fathers and Catch a Fire.) But let's also note that a film up to something extra and exceptional probably isn't worth its salt unless it's irritating or confounding a certain percentage.
A critic friend was asking me last weekend about the "what" of Babel, which he couldn't quite get his head around. I trotted out the old interconnectivity thing, which is that we're all ping-pong balls sitting on sprung mousetraps, and that the rule of our communal existence is that one reaction is always begetting another, blah, blah. (Familiar but undeniably true and tragic.) I also mentioned the Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu line about the things that bind everyone the world over are the ones that give grief, and of course the constancy of parenting and children.
But the real payoff, for me, is the scent of intrigue without any explicit maps or position papers. The universals in the particulars. An unmistakable presence of currents without knowing their precise speed and direction, or even being able to spot each and every piece of debris being carried along.
My general rule of thumb is, a good film doesn't have to add up like the price of groceries. There are few if any explanational "what's" in Michelangelo Anton- ioni's films, after all. Substance isn't necessarily something you can detect by breaking down the components and pouring them from one beaker into another.
And it doesn't bother me in the least if Babel uses the same type of story structure that Amores perros and 21 Grams ran with. I'm amazed that some people are calling this a nagger.
I'm heartened, in any case, that Reed has mentioned the Brad-and-Cate peeing scene as one of the emotional high points. "Blanchett's diversity is a matter of record," he acknowledges, "but nothing will prepare you for the power and depth of Pitt's gut-wrenching performance as the brave, fiercely protective and helpless husband. There's one scene, where he covers his wife from the prying eyes of African children and helps her pee into a pan in the dirt, that will either move you to tears or remind you that you need to see a shrink."
I've seen Babel three times, and I could easily catch in another couple of times because it's so well crafted and so immensely watchable. You've heard that line hundred of times so wave it away if you choose. You can wave Babel away and call it tiresome and over-rated, but at least check it out and think it through. It opens semi-limited on Friday (10.27) and expands a week or so later.
Posted by Jeffrey Wells on October 25, 2006 at 2:54 PM
comment #1
Gabriel
says ...
I'm excited as hell for "Babel"...possibly more than any other film this year except for "The Fountain".
But Rex Reed is the fucking worst film "journalist" I've ever read. His entire review of "Sideways", while technically being correct (it was a rave), consisted of an attack on Wes Anderson, Paul Thomas Anderson, and David O. Russell (whose "I Heart Huckabees" was Rex's worst film of 2004). I get what you're saying about his devotion to conviction, but hell, W and his minions have conviction. It doesn't change the fact that they're fucking imbeciles.
Posted by Gabriel
at October 25, 2006 4:59 PM
comment #2
JD
says ...
I totally agree, Gabriel. Of all the semi-well-known critics working today, Rex Reed is by far the worst (okay, it might be a tie between him and Joel Siegel). If I were Jeff, I wouldn't be drawing attention to the parallels between him and Rex, I would be burning the evidence.
Posted by JD
at October 25, 2006 5:34 PM
comment #3
Mark
says ...
Will see, but David Ansen's review definitely lowered expectations, which may be a good thing.
(Plus, i just Ammores Perros again, and it has lost something since it first came out.)
Posted by Mark
at October 25, 2006 6:22 PM
comment #4
cleopatrajones
says ...
So-so reviews aside, Babel is still my most anticipated film of the year.
Posted by cleopatrajones
at October 25, 2006 6:36 PM
comment #5
MilkMan
says ...
We're all connected. Bullshit. I've had enough of this Systems Theory dogma. Van Bertanffly saw around the bend, but he couldn't see the whole road. Just another way of making everything fit a prescribed structure. Let's see one of these genius make a movie where nothing connects. Maybe the team behind this turd should go rent demonlover and take notes. And I'm tired of seeing Brad Pitt cry. What's he so fucking sad about? Maddox refuses to call him dad? Angelina can't stop reminding him how big Billy Bob's boner is? Pitt and DiCaprio. All these guys want to do is cry. Maybe they should stop listening to Coldplay and buy some Dead C. We're all connected. Yeah, okay, that felt like an epic thought in 1997, but the moment is over. There. You want something to cry about? Cry about that. It's not 1997 anymore. You have a double chin and your hair is thinning. Why doesn't anybody make a movie about that? And don't give me Kaufman. Kaufman makes movies about how smart he is. Well, I think Kaufman should make a movie called One Night in Cambodia, and in the movie, Charlie Kaufman would play a man named Duc Pho, a Cambodian doctor who is sent to the death camps, who doesn't understand why he's there, who tells anyone who'll listen that his name is not Duc Pho, that his name is Charlie Kaufman, that he's a screenwriter from Los Angeles, and everytime he says this they torture him, until he accepts that he is Duc Pho, which he does, and that's when he's decapitated by a twelve year old boy, who then uses his head as a soccer ball. That's a movie I would see. I think I'll pass on Babel. Besides, who gives a shit what Rex Reed thinks?
Posted by MilkMan
at October 25, 2006 6:57 PM
comment #6
Dixon Steele
says ...
Did you see the ad in the LA Times today from the producers of BABEL, complaining about the story in both the LA & NY TIMES, pointing up the friction between Innaritu and Arriaga?
They resented the attention, while not denying it, confirming the two would no longer be working together again.
Posted by Dixon Steele
at October 25, 2006 7:08 PM
comment #7
p.Vice
says ...
"But let's also note that a film up to something extra and exceptional probably isn't worth its salt unless it's irritating or confounding a certain percentage."
You should remember this the next time a film that's not completely brainwashed counts you among the confounded, Jeffrey.
Posted by p.Vice
at October 25, 2006 7:23 PM
comment #8
Mike Schaefer
says ...
In addition to Ansen, 2 other Davids (Denby & Edelstein) also gave it qualified pans.
Denby: "an infuriatingly well-made disaster."
Posted by Mike Schaefer
at October 25, 2006 10:18 PM
comment #9
jeffmcm
says ...
Hey Milkman, I'll give you ten bucks to make that movie.
Posted by jeffmcm
at October 26, 2006 3:21 AM
comment #10
The Movie Man
says ...
I'm inclined to take Edelstein seriously on this one. He's a good critic and seemed to be one of the few to acknowledge what pretentious baloney the filmmakers' prior effort, 21 Grams, was. News to all who do or will make movies, depressing and non-linear do not necessarily spell masterpiece.
Posted by The Movie Man
at October 26, 2006 7:41 AM
comment #11
JWEgo
says ...
JeffWellsEgo to jeffty is five
You don't have ten dollars. You are a worthless troll who thinks your comments matter. Please die.
Posted by JWEgo
at October 26, 2006 8:14 AM
comment #12
NYCritic
says ...
I was underwhelmed by BABEL. Two of the stories were tied together but the third one was so tenuously connected to the others it almost didn't count. I will say that the only thing keeping me awake through this long movie was trying to figure out how the Japanese story fit in with the others. When that answer came, it was so disappointing.
Mark me down along with the 2 Davids, this is an overpraised work that, of course, the Oscars will just love.
Posted by NYCritic
at October 26, 2006 8:41 AM