Babel 2006

Babel
2006
Lots Of People
**** of five for someone who runs with an idea.



Okay, in the end credits for this fabulous movie, it says 'Based on an idea by so & so. Oh. my. goodness. An idea?! I mean I know movies take a lot of work with storyboarding and figuring out plot right and yada, yada, but really? An IDEA??? That is a lot of work.
Basically this movie follows about 4 or 5 major plots and at the end you finally get to see how they are all connected. The way they make it work is amazing. The criss crossing of time lines, stories, characters and countries is at times confusing and in the end mind blowing. I suggest if you go to see this movie, you have a spare hour or two planned after it for some coffee and conversation. All the next day I just kept fitting pieces into place. I am happy to say that Hollywood woke up this year and nominated this good movie for a Best Picture Oscar. While it may be hard to watch at times, it is definately worth it. I am also happy to see a few of the actors up for Oscars as well. Especially unknowns. If you don't like mainstream hollywood, don't let the fact that Brad Pitt headlines this movie scare you off. I don't think he would have chosen to label it like that. Especially since he has one of the lesser shown stories.

One of the things that I really enjoyed about this movie is that the entire point is to show the confusion accompaning communication. They portray every type of communication barrier that there is at some point throughout the movie. There are problems of understanding between different languages, different ages, emotional barriers, visual communication, sign language, between friends, lovers, parents, caretakers, officials, siblings, employers, employees.

Babel seems like an obvious though appropriate name.

It is a lot of stories.

It is a lot of work.

Give it a shot. It's worth it.