Brilliantly conceived, superbly directed, and beautifully acted, Babel is inarguably one of the best films of 2006. Director Alejandro Gonz??lez I????rritu and his co-writer, Guillermo Arriaga (the two also collaborated on Amores Perros and 21 Grams) weave together the disparate strands of their story into a finely hewn fabric by focusing on what appear to be several equally incongruent characters: an American (Brad Pitt) touring Morocco with his wife (Cate Blanchett) become the focus of an international incident also involving a hardscrabble Moroccan farmer (Mustapha Rachidi) struggling to keep his two young sons in line and his family together. A San Diego nanny (Adriana Barraza), her employers absent, makes the disastrous decision to take their kids with her to a wedding in Mexico. And a deaf-mute Japanese teen (the extraordinary Rinko Kikuchi) deals with a relationship with her father (Koji Yakusho) and the world in general that's been upended by the death of her mother. It is perhaps not surprising, or particularly original, that a gun is the device that ties these people together. Yet Babel isn't merely about violence and its tragic consequences. It's about communication, and especially the lack of it--both intercultural, raising issues like terrorism and immigration, and intracultural, as basic as husbands talking to their wives and parents understanding their children. I????rritu's command of his medium, sound and visual alike, is extraordinary; the camera work is by turns kinetic and restrained, the music always well matched to the scenes, the editing deft but not confusing, and the film (which clocks in at a lengthy 143 minutes) is filled with indelible moments. Many of those moments are also pretty stark and grim, and no will claim that all of this leads to a "happy" ending, but there is a sense of reconciliation, perhaps even resolution. "If You Want to be Understood... Listen," goes the tagline. And if you want a movie that will leave you thinking, Babel is it. --Sam Graham

Fantastic film, I found the film an incredibly tense affair as I had no idea how any on the stories in the montage would pan out. Not surprised at some of the poor reviews as I can understand it not being everyone's cup of tea. However, if you like films that are beautifully shot, with brilliant acting (from all the cast)and non-formulaic stories you won't be disappointed.

I thought great another brad pit movie.. I started watching it and was waiting for it to get a bit better. Starts with poor family buying a machine gun with money and a goat.
It then goes to the young sons out looking after the goat herd. Then it has a scene which I can only describe as being "peadofilic" no reason for it in the film... scene of very young boy pleasuring himself. Absolutely no need for it and I don't understand how this film was aloud to be released with that scene. Just awful. Being a mother of 4 children it was horrible..

This is an interesting film when seen as a study of storytelling - the process is deconstructed by the director, challenging the traditional linear progression of an orthodox plot and peeling skin after skin away revealing each layer of the story. You get a keen sense of the director's sense of threads and flows in life - all things unrelated coming together to form a central concept. Time takes a back seat as we concentrate on events and interplay rather than choronology.

However, there is no real impetus to the film - some strands are fascinating, and you feel yourself drawn into the story, when others cut in and interrupt the flow. An interesting experiment, but not the most engaging piece of cinema. Moreover, the film seems to have no real conclusion, and just leaves viewers with a scattered collection of ideas from which they must draw their own readings. This is worth the trouble if you are a viewer who likes to be challenged to do the extra head work after the film; but it might be a little unsatisfying for the regular film-lover!

Babel has its moments of genius, most notably a club scene in one third of the film following a deaf girl in Japan, and also wherever Gael Garcia Bernal is involved.
But the film never quite lives up to its potential. The third of the film set in Japan is largely irrelevant to the overall story, yet ironically this is cinematically the most brilliant section.
Still, it's certainly gripping and definately worth watching.

We had painted our sitting room before sitting down to watch this - I can honestly say it was more exciting looking at the walls dry. What was the point of this film! 138 mins of my life gone that I will never get back! To be avoided at all costs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!