In the biblical story of the Tower of Babel, God punishes mankind for attempting to build a tower high enough to touch the heavens by destroying it and fragmenting the universal language to confuse future such efforts. In Babel, Alejandro González Iñárritu weaves four stories into an ambitious message about culture and miscommunication stemming from that dispersion of languages. Fortunately, the film leaves little room for the kind of backlash seen in the original Babel story. Indeed, the film is well constructed, pulling together four plots that could each earn their own movie but weigh on one another when everything is brought together.

The madness starts when an American tourist (Cate Blanchett) is struck by a stray bullet fired by two Moroccan boys fooling with a rifle their father bought to protect the family sheep herd. The tourist and her husband (Brad Pitt) are rushed to a small town to be treated by a medicine man, left in the dark by their government, who is unwilling to send a medical helicopter into the supposedly volatile area. Meanwhile, the young boys hide from authorities, who are considering the accident an act of terrorism. The story also follows a Japanese widower businessman who can’t communicate with his depressed, deaf/mute daughter and an immigrant housekeeper who brings the children she babysits to her son’s wedding in Mexico.

Each story is told, and acted, beautifully, but it’s when they come together that the film achieves the great things to which it aspires. It is not the different languages that truly keep these characters at arms’ length from one another, but their stubborn unwillingness to recognize another’s difficulties understanding the differences.

Like last year’s Crash, Babel takes a bunch of heartbreaking situations and connects them, but where Crash brought the connections out into the open relatively quickly, Babel holds its cards close, choosing to reveal them at strategic moments. It brings out a palpable tension that fits the story perfectly.

With stunning cinematography, a top-notch cast, and fantastic directing, don’t be surprised if Babel finds itself earning the same praise that Crash did last year. In fact, Babel could be the leading contender for the very same Best Picture Oscar that Crash so controversially won last year, only this time, there should be fewer arguments.

Rating: * * * * of 5

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