DVD reviews: Babel – Issue 65

Babel is definitely not the kind of movie you settle down to watch with a bag of chips, a crate of beer and the old lady after a hard week on the ranch. But if you want something provocative, involving and multilayered, you could do worse. Those who have watched director Alejando Gonzà¡lez Ià±à¡rritu’s previous, critically acclaimed films Amores Perros and 21 Grams will already appreciate his intense style, in which various stories (which ultimately link up) play out over a long running time… in this case, 138 minutes. The three settings are Morocco, Mexico and Japan, and what links the stories contained within is a rifle. The film makes a pretty strong statement about the personal politic – how, in a global community, seemingly innocuous decisions can lead to disaster – and about the gulf of privilege between the first and third worlds. Each story is quite extraordinary in its own way, and each could have made a riveting 90-minute feature on its own. I won’t go into details, as the less the viewer knows the better; a big part of the experience revolves around the surprise as the links between the stories are slowly revealed. (That said, we all know how easy it is to find a synopsis if you just can’t wait). In a film world that’s still way too Hollywoodcentric, a film that takes you to less often depicted parts of the world is always a shock to the system. Babel is a shock for that reason, but also because it has a point of view that clearly comes from somewhere other than middle class America.

The anamorphic presentation is an uncommonly good transfer with realistic Dolby surround that perfectly suits the fly-on-the-wall style of the production. The second disc of this two-disc collectors’ edition is a comprehensive 90-minute ‘making of’ documentary that’s miles away from the usual shallow publicity drool. This is thought-provoking stuff, and Ià±à¡rritu is shown as a flawed and highly strung individual who has barely got the whole thing under control. We learn that many of the roles – particularly those filmed in Morocco – are played by people who’ve never seen an LCD screen before, let alone acted in a movie. Babel is not a perfect movie, but it’s an important one.

GARY STEEL