Until I was 17 years old, the Academy Awards captivated me. As an aspiring filmmaker, they were the prize that I sought.
Never mind that the lone film in my reel was “Meteor,” a special effects extravaganza whose most impressive scene involved my monstrously tall friend Jason dropping a rock on a model of Mission Santa Clara de Asis that I had made out of sugar cubes in fourth grade.
In recent years I’ve soured on the Oscars as the last word in filmic greatness. It started when “Shakespeare in Love” won Best Picture over “Saving Private Ryan,” an eminently more deserving movie.
And it only got worse when movies such as “A Beautiful Mind,” “Million Dollar Baby” and “Crash” started cleaning up at the awards. These aren’t bad movies. But I don’t think
they’re award-winning fare either.
This was forgivable, though, because I always assumed the Academy voters were just old fogeys who refused to see edgier fare because they were set in their ways.
Then “Babel” got nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It was at this point that I realized the members of the Academy may be guilt-ridden liberals in
addition to old fogeys.
“Babel,” directed by Alejandro GonzaÌlez IñaÌrritu, relates stories in four concurrent settings: a rural Muslim family in Morocco, an American couple vacationing in Morocco, a Mexican nanny caring for the aforementioned couple’s children in Southern California, and a deaf-mute girl in Japan trying to get attention through her sexuality.
The movie attempts to tackle subjects such as globalization and cross-cultural communication, and tries to break down the idea that, through technological advancement,
the world has gotten smaller.
That’s cool. It’s also not the movie I saw.
“Babel” never makes a coherent point. It’s a collection of scenes with people suffering for no greater purpose by making awful choices.
The film is rife with characters doing unbelievable things (“Hey, we have a new rifle! Let’s see how far it fires by shooting at a moving bus!”) which lead to tragedy. Other stories,
such as that of the Mexican nanny, attempt to editorialize on the plight of immigrants living in the United States and having to cross the border.
That’s fine, until you remember that this nanny’s misfortune is borne out of her own stupidity. Because, you know, having your drunk nephew (who’s not a U.S. citizen) drive you through the American border with two American children who aren’t yours in the wee hours of the morning is a great idea.
It’s a bloated, pretentious film that, while well-shot and containing one truly great story (the Japan segments should have been their own movie), simply does not add up. Yet it’s
getting all kinds of awards attention despite receiving the worst reviews of any of the five Best Picture nominees.
Why the love?
“Babel” answers this question in its closing moments. A news report wrapping up the Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett segment explicitly notes that we have seen “a happy ending for
the Americans.” Everyone else? Not so much.
“Babel” belongs to a fledgling genre which I like to refer to as the “liberal guilt” movie. Specifically, the movie has nothing to say beyond “people are stupid” and “life sucks,” yet it’s getting praise as being such a daring, affecting film.
It’s because it makes people feel guilty.
Particularly about being American. It attempts to discuss complex events such as immigration through melodramatic, heavy-handed scenes, like the one of the nanny wandering through the desert in her fraying dress. I strongly believe that people are walking out of this movie and mistaking the consequences of characters’ bad decisions for a meaningful statement, and their visceral reactions to all of these heavy-handed scenes are hypnotizing them into overlooking the movie’s flaws.
Mostly, they see these scenes occurring and they begin to think about how lucky they are to be an American, making them feel like this film is obviously saying something deep to make them feel like this. It’s unfortunate, because IñaÌrritu is a talented filmmaker, yet he relies on scenes of outrageously over-the-top melodrama to coerce an emotional response out of his viewers. It ends up feeling lazy and forced. The sorts of movies that do this often have nothing to say and rely on these sorts of tricks for a reason.
Yet “Babel” is not a case of style over substance.
It’s a case of people’s guilt winning out over their judgment.
Humphrey thinks that “Children of Men” and “Pan’s Labyrinth” have a lot more to say than “Babel” and should be getting all of its awards. E-mail him at mhumphrey@media.ucla.edu.