The characters in “Babel” speak English, Spanish, Arabic, Japanese and sign language. They are illegal immigrants, uneasy travelers and people who feel like strangers in their own homes.
For director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (“21 Grams”), the theme of being an outsider is personal. “Babel,” with Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett and a strong ensemble cast, is inspired by his own experiences as a Mexican living in the United States for five years.
“You are suddenly outside your little ranch, your little comfort zone, where you are somebody,” he said Tuesday. “To be an immigrant makes you more aggressive and more observant and more excited and more vulnerable. That’s good … . I think it’s a very interesting process, not easy, but you enrich yourself.”
Halfway through the Cannes Film Festival, the moving “Babel” is arguably the strongest film so far in the main competition. Like “21 Grams” and “Amores Perros,” Inarritu’s first film, “Babel” weaves together stories about people whose lives are changed by a shared crisis.
In “Babel,” scheduled for U.S. release Oct. 6, the starting point is a rifle shot in the Moroccan desert that pierces the roof of a tourist bus and brings aftershocks in California, Mexico and Japan. It’s an intimate tale of globalization, about the difficulties of communicating pain whether you’re at home or far away.
Blanchett and Pitt play a couple fleeing a personal tragedy by taking a trip to faraway North Africa. But their star power does not overshadow the rest of the cast, and every story line has equal weight.
A California nanny (Adriana Barraza in a heart-wrenching performance) goes to great lengths to cross into Mexico for her son’s wedding, putting her young charges in danger.
A deaf schoolgirl in Tokyo (Rinko Kikuchi) acts out in grief after her mother’s suicide by trying to seduce every man she meets. Veteran Japanese actor Koji Yakusho (“Memoirs of a Geisha”) plays her father.
Inarritu said weaving together several story lines comes naturally to him. “When I’m in the car, I see someone pass, and I say, that guy was more interesting than anything in my mind. So I want to talk about that guy.
“The reality we have is so limited. I want to explore what is happening outside, and how that will affect me though I don’t know about it,” he said in an interview after his movie’s first Cannes screening.
Cannes has a special meaning for Inarritu, 42. “Amores Perros” showed here six years ago in a smaller competition in the festival, Critics Week, and won. That success ultimately brought him to Los Angeles. Inarritu had total control over “Babel” and its final cut – unusual for a third-time director in Hollywood.
“In the end, I think the director becomes the (pilot) of the plane,” he said. “So when somebody jumps in and says, ‘I’ll fly with you,’ he better trust you. If two guys want to be the captain in the middle of the flight, that’s dangerous.”
In just a few films, Inarritu has worked with some of Hollywood’s most respected actors. “21 Grams” brought Academy Award nominations for Naomi Watts and Benicio Del Toro, and it also starred Sean Penn.
Blanchett said Inarritu’s passion and vision convinced her to take on her role as a mother far from her children.
“As he spoke about ‘Babel,’ I felt, ‘You have to make this film,'” she told the AP. “You very rarely feel that with a director … . You really felt with Alejandro that this was incredibly important to him.”
Inarritu spent about a year away from home to make the movie, much of it on location in Japan and Morocco, where he cast non-actors found through an announcement in a mosque and by videotaping hundreds of villagers. He worked with dialogue coaches to direct scenes in languages he does not speak.
But Inarritu said making a global movie was less intimidating than it might seem. “I feel that on some level you can, just with your eyes or with gestures, explain what you need from actors. There’s a moment when language is not a barrier anymore.”
