Thursday, November 23, 2006

Knee Jerk Babel Thoughts

I think I had higher hopes for Alejandro González Iñárritu's latest film, Babel.

I loved the Amores perros, and was less impressed with 21 grams, but the magnitude and potential of the movie Babel made it one of the movies I really wanted to see in theaters.

Yet, Babel, was much more of a novelty piece than an enjoyable movie. The effort it took to film and create such interesting scenes worked technically, but as an interesting and compelling story there were times when it just didn't hold together.

The Japanese club scenes and the Mexican wedding scenes were fun, but certainly had the potential to induce epilepsy, perhaps there should have been a warning at the start of the movie.
Earlier in the year, people have speculated as to who would be the stand out performance in thensembleble piece, would it be Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Gael Garcia Bernal, or Rinko Kikuchi. Yet after watching the film the stand out to me is clear Adrianna Barraza does an exceptional and moving job playing the role of Amerlia, the nanny of Mike and Debbie (Elle Fanning). Although I thought it kind of funny that Barraza played Bernal's mother in Amores Perros.

And Rinko Kikuchi's character and the deaf Japanese girl, is way bizarre and was far too much of an over the top character.

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2 comments:

F.J. Delgado said...

Sounds like a movie worth checking out as a rental once it comes out on DVD... thanks for the review!

Anonymous said...

It is an extreme film, RC. There were parts I didn't care for at all, and some of the style WAS over the top. But I've got to admit that I really like Inarritu's films. It's not even that I've decided to like his films -- I just do.

I realize that people have different personal reactions to films. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this one. Hopefully you didn't feel it was a waste of time. Because be prepared: I have a completely opposite opinion of Scoop than yours, too! :-)