Babel: Four stories that spiral from one rifle

A film with a non-linear storyline is always intriguing to review, especially if it has been made well. Babel, the 2006 release of Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu, has a non-linear plot which actually ties together four different storyline across four different countries in three continents. The effort of making four different stories, with individual protagonists, must be hard enough, but to see them have relevance to each other in a way that has them connected is quite a remarkable feat.

In the remote mountains of Morocco lives a poor goat herder with his family. In order to keep the jackals away from his flock, he has purchased a gun from a friend which he hands over to his sons as they take the goats out to graze on the mountains. The rifle is meant to be for the protection of the goats, but the kids have their own pissing contest as they aim a tourist bus traveling through the mountain pass. Richard Jones and his wife Susan are on a vacation in Morocco when tragedy strikes the couple. Susan is struck in the shoulder by a stray bullet and struggles to hang on to life as Richard fights his way to get her proper medical attention. Meanwhile in the United States of America, Amelia is tending to Richard’s children as he and his wife are away. Amelia is unable to find a babysitter for the children and is forced to take them along with her to Mexico to attend the wedding of her son where she has a run in with the law. In Japan, the deaf and mute girl Chieko is fed up of being ignored by boys her age because of her disability. She reaches the end of her wits as she tries to engage anyone who will be willing to sleep with her, just about the same time that police officers visit her home to interrogate her father.

Babel brings together tragedy in more forms than one. With themes of death, rejection, legality, police brutality, and more, it shocks the viewer out of a comfortable shell. It puts forward a drastic situation which leads to a ripple effect across different nations for individuals who are connected but entirely unaware of the fact. The film has both the drastic, as it deals with a hard-hitting issue as death, and the subtle, as it shows that rejection can be a big part of someone’s psychological changes.

The film has a plot-line which moves back and forth between the four stories. At some points in a particular story, it peaks before switching to the next story so as to leave a minor cliffhanger; at other times it solves the problem in a situation before cutting to the next story. It brilliantly portrays each protagonist in detail so the audience has an idea of what goes on in the head and heart of the character. Richard Jones, the American tourist and overall protagonist of the film, is a caring father who has to face a test to prove his love to his wife when tragedy strikes and their already rocky relationship meets a challenge. Yussef is just a poor boy living with his family in the mountains who faces turmoil as his family is ripped apart because of a single mistake made by him. Amelia is a loving old woman who takes care of the Jones children as if they were her own but is put in an unfortunate circumstance which she can’t manipulate and eventually leads to trouble for her and the people she cares about the most. Chieko is a deaf and mute teenager who wants to be treated as a normal girl despite her disability, but unfortunately finds that she has to do something drastic in order to enjoy her first sexual experience.

The fact that director Alejandro González Iñárritu has made all four stories revolve around and kick off from a single rifle is what holds the film together quite interestingly. There is a certain sense of anticipation with every new fact revealed in the film and every time the story cuts off and starts at another place. The non-linear format helps the script quite a bit since it builds up a level of anticipation. Even the performances put in by the actors are quite special.

Babel is an example of a butterfly effect, or ripple effect, where the plot takes off from one focal point to change multiple destinies. It is quite a special film which can be easily appreciated.