Babel is a gripping, tragic movie that uses metaphors of deafness, isolation and communication by interweaving the stories of 4 families around the world connected by a rifle

Reina Makino as Chieko in Babel rave scene (photo Paramount Pictures)

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I was watching the DVD of Babel (2006) over the weekend.

In the loud Tokyo rave scene with a group of deaf teenagers, the sound goes dead for Chieko who has a hearing disability.

Suddenly the viewer is immersed in the world of the deaf. The effect is quite startling.

You suddenly feel Chieko’s isolation as a deaf person from the crowded and noisy rave. 

Chieko’s disability is a compelling part of the story. The emptiness of communication forms an ironic counterpoint to the miscommunication or babel of the non-deaf characters.

The rave scene, coming at the end of a long atmospheric drug-fueled romp across Tokyo, is a loud, rhythmic, throbbing experience.  The techno music pumps with strobe lighting. The people are dancing in one mass of bodies, lost in their trances.

All of a sudden the sound is off for about four seconds, then five seconds and then maybe eight seconds. All you can hear is low-level white noise.

The Director is moving back and forth between the silent world of the deaf and the loud environment of a rave. The effect is startling in the theatre.

I had originally linked to a YouTube clip of the rave which preserved the effect. That clip was taken down over copyright infringement. In the remaining YouTube posts, people felt so much discomfort being immersed in the deaf world, they swapped out the original soundtrack.

What’s wrong? At first you struggle for the remote control until you see the two shot of Chieko’s face. Then the isolation of her deafness becomes vividly clear.

Director Alejandro González Iñárriti powerfully illustrates the isolation of the deaf teenager. It stops you in your tracks.

While I am familiar with disabilities and hearing impairment, nothing has ever driven home the experience like that scene.

No pumping bass, no keyboards, no sounds of other people in the room, nothing but silence in the middle of the loud rave scene.

As the point of view shifts from the deaf teenager to everyone else, the sound goes on and off.  She feels alone in the crowd and leaves the club.

Of course, anyone can be alienated in a crowd. However, the totality of deafness is something different.

Babel

Cate Blanchett, Brad Pitt in Babel (photo Paramount Pictures)

Babel is a movie with 4 connected stories centered on a rifle.

In each segment, connected to the others by tenuous links, the characters suffer, react and fail to communicate while outside their normal worlds.

An American couple vacation in Morocco.

A man buys a rifle and gives it to his goat herding sons.

Chieko, a teenager in Tokyo, is depressed over the death of her mother from suicide and her own disability.

The American couple, played by Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, left their children with a Mexican American housekeeper.

At first the story seems random but soon the connections build in gut wrenching fashion. Things start going wrong in succession with a quiet but gripping tension.

Cate Blanchett is shot and Brad Pitt reacts trying to get help for her.

The American couple and their Moroccan adventure initially reminded me of  Port and Kit Moresby in Paul Bowles’ existential novel and movie The Sheltering Sky. 

The Moroccan boys try target practice with fateful results.

Meanwhile the nanny decides to take the two children to Mexico for a wedding. Pitt and Blanchett’s children are out-of-place at a Mexican wedding.

The tension is palpable. The Mexican nanny communicates badly with US border guards and things go very badly on re-entry to the US.

Chieko tries to integrate in the hearing world at the rave and becomes more alienated by the experience.

The title refers to the Bible story when a city spoke one language. God confused their language one night so they couldn’t understand each other.

“That is why it was called Babel—because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world.” Genesis 11. Babel is the Hebrew equivalent for confused.

Babel is a gripping movie, perhaps a little overlong but it holds your attention in a tight grip. The sense of impending tragedy and connectedness builds to the point that is becomes almost unbearable.  Tension builds slowly throughout the movie with little relief.

Babel is a hard movie to forget, the images sear into your consciousness.