Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Babel

There are enough films in this initially-divergent-multiple-plot-line-converging-into-single-story genre that they should have their own genre name. Here the ensemble cast pieces together several stories across both geography and time that eventually weave together into a whole. The theme here seems to be that each story develops around a tragic episode that is pretty much random or unavoidable. We see how people deal with tragedy in different ways and we see how relationships hold different value in each scenario. Unfortunately, the premise of each scenario is sufficiently contrived that I didn't buy in to this being a realistic possible sequence. For these films, in order for the stories to mean something as a whole, there must be a sense that the connection/sequence is possible and not just set up to manufacture tension individually to get a "greater" whole. Beautifully filmed and raising issues that are important to think about and discuss is a good beginning, but does not make a great film.
3 stars (out of 5)

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