Babel (film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Babel |
| Original title | Babel |
| Country of production |
France , United States , Mexico |
| original language | English , Spanish , Japanese , Arabic , French , Berber , Japanese Sign Language |
| Publishing year | 2006 |
| length | 142 minutes |
| Age rating |
FSK 16 JMK 14 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Alejandro González Iñárritu |
| script | Guillermo Arriaga |
| production |
Steve Golin , Alejandro González Iñárritu, Jon Kilik |
| music | Gustavo Santaolalla |
| camera | Rodrigo Prieto |
| cut |
Douglas Crise , Stephen Mirrione |
| occupation | |
| |
| chronology | |
|
← Predecessor |
|
Babel is an episodic film - drama from the year 2006 the Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu , who along with his compatriot, the screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga had the idea for the film. After Amores Perros from 2000 and 21 Gramm (2003), the film marks the end of a trilogy on the subject of violence, death and human abysses. All three storylines of the film and thus also the locations are linked in a more or less hidden way.
action
- Morocco
The two underage Moroccan brothers Ahmed and Yussef are commissioned by their father to look after the family's goat herd. In the desert, however, the two prefer to experiment with the Winchester M70 hunting rifle that they have given them to protect the herd from attacks by jackals . The father bought the weapon from his neighbor Hassan, who once received it from a Japanese hunter. Ahmed and Yussef want to test the range of the rifle with which you can supposedly hit your target from three kilometers away. At the request of his brother, the younger Yussef mindlessly aims at an approaching bus that is traveling further down the valley with western tourists. Among the bus occupants is the American couple Richard and Susan, who the trip to North Africa should help over the loss of their youngest child. Susan, who is considering separating from her husband because he left her after the child's death, is hit by Yussef's bullet through the bus window and seriously injured. Four hours away from the nearest hospital, the bus heads for a village where the desperate Richard turns to the American embassy by phone and begs for help. However, since the diplomats assume a terrorist attack, the arrival of the region's only ambulance has been delayed for political reasons. Richard has to save his wife from bleeding to death with the help of an old Moroccan woman and a veterinarian. Only hours later, Richard and Susan are flown with the rescue helicopter to a city hospital in Casablanca , where Susan receives medical care.
- USA, Mexico
Through a phone call from her long-term employers, Richard and Susan, the Mexican housekeeper Amelia learns of the fateful events in San Diego, thousands of kilometers away . First, Richard tells her that she can go to her son's wedding the following day. During a later phone call, he asks her to stay with the couple's two children who stayed at home. However, the Mexican is looking for a babysitter to attend her son's upcoming wedding celebrations in nearby Mexico . When no one is able to take over the children who are entrusted to her, Amelia decides to take them across the border to their home country.
On re-entry into the USA, Amelia's hot-headed and drunk nephew Santiago takes on the provocative US border guards who find it strange that two American children are traveling in a vehicle with two Mexicans. After Amelia cannot show a power of attorney from her parents and the drunk Santiago is supposed to do an alcohol test, he breaks through the border crossing in the direction of the USA with his car. While trying to outrun the border police, he leaves the street, leaving Amelia and the two children alone in the California desert to pick them up later.
The next day, Amelia leaves the children for help and is half dying of thirst and tearfully picked up by the police and arrested. It turns out that she is working illegally in the US. After their arrest, their deportation will begin. During interrogation by the border guard, Amelia learns that the children have been found in the desert and are alive.
- Tokyo
At the same time as the two events, young Chieko tries to come to terms with her mother's suicide in Tokyo . The daughter of the businessman and former hunter Yasujiro, who years ago gave his Winchester rifle as a present to his local hunting guide Hassan on a safari in Morocco, is nice, pretty and deaf . Chieko seems to blame her father partly for her mother's death and formally isolates herself from him. As a single father, Yasujiro tries hard, but hopelessly overwhelmed, to keep the adolescents in check. The innate communication barrier seems to make it difficult for Chieko to make contact with the opposite sex, even though she flirts heavily at the same time.
The frequent rejection makes her feel like she is alone in her own world. The girl seeks fun in drugs, alcohol and parties in the Asian metropolis, which is filled with noise, music and voices. Although Chieko cannot hear the deafening music in the discotheque, she feels the beats and happily disappears into the crowd for a brief moment until she watches as her friend kisses the boy she is courting. Back home, she is crying and looking for closeness and intimacy with a police officer who had previously visited her to ask her father about his rifle. She told him that her mother jumped from the balcony (in fact, she shot herself). In the final scene, Chieko stands naked on the balcony of her high-rise apartment building and looks out into the sea of lights in Tokyo. Her father, who is returning home, steps in, and they hold hands, free from reproaches and blame.
History of origin
The Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu ended his trilogy on violence, death and human abysses with Babel , which he began with his feature film debut Amores Perros (2000) and his second English-language directorial work 21 Gramm (2003). For the production of the film, Iñárritu was able to fall back on his usual scriptwriters Guillermo Arriaga , cameraman Rodrigo Prieto , production designer Brigitte Broch and film composer Gustavo Santaolalla . Arriaga, Prieto and Broch had contributed to Amores Perros and 21 Gramm , Santaolalla also contributed to Iñárritu's contribution to the episode film 11'09 "01 - September 11 (2002) about the attack on the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001.
Filming for Babel took place from May 2 to December 1, 2005 on original locations, including the Japanese Ibaraki , Club Womb in Tokyo, the vicinity of Ouarzazate in Morocco, Tijuana and the Sonoran Desert in Mexico. In addition to well-known actors such as the Australian Oscar winner Cate Blanchett , the American Brad Pitt and the Mexican Gael García Bernal , who celebrated his breakthrough with Amores Perros , amateur actors also worked in the film. a. numerous Moroccan villagers. The film script is based on the biblical legend of the Tower of Babel . As a punishment for the presumptuousness of the builders to want to reach heaven or God with the pyramid-shaped temple tower of Babylon , God confused people and gave them different languages. Two languages can be found in each of the storylines in Babel - Arabic and English in Morocco , English and Spanish in California and northern Mexico, Japanese and Japanese sign language in Tokyo. For the Editor were film editors Douglas Crise and Stephen Mirrione responsible involved in in 2003 21 grams had cooperated. As in the previous films Iñárritus, the stories are not told in chronological order. The fragmentary scenes are presented to the viewer at different times.
reception
Babel premiered on May 23, 2006 at the Cannes Film Festival . Alejandro González Iñárritu's sixth directorial work and third feature film was heralded as a modern parable of the biblical tower and was in the favor of critics, who rated it as a perfect film about cultural codes and the difficulties of (international) understanding . The few critical voices complained that Iñárritu had given Babel a too conciliatory ending and, in contrast to his previous films Amores Perros and 21 Gramm , lacked the ultimate stringency in some of his characters. The director himself said that with his film he had “the contradiction between the impression that the world has become smaller with all the communication tools that we have [want to explore] and the feeling that people are nonetheless unable to look at themselves express a basic level and with each other to communicate . " “I tried to show what is happening to us right now. We always see the 'other' as abstract, so to be different means to be dangerous and not able to understand the other. This happens not only from country to country, but between fathers, sons, husbands […] We are no longer able to listen. "
The director told Rüdiger Suchsland : "What we all have in common as humans is pain."
In the United States, where the film opened in select theaters on October 27, 2006 on distribution by Paramount Pictures , Babel received an "R" rating from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). As a result, young people under the age of 17 can only visit the film if they are accompanied by a parent or adult. Babel started in Germany on December 21, 2006.
The production cost was estimated at around $ 25 million. The film grossed around 135 million US dollars in cinemas worldwide, including around 34 million US dollars in the United States and around 7.9 million US dollars in Germany.
background
The casting of Rinko Kikuchi dragged on for about a year until she was accepted for the role of Chieko. The filling of the role of Yussuf by Boubker Ait El Caid was much faster. Iñárritu hired him after seeing him play football on a local pitch.
Brad Pitt as an admirer of Iñárritus renounced a role in the film Departed, which he co-produced in 2006, in favor of the film Babel .
Despite suffering from protracted heart problems, Adriana Barraza decided not only to gain 35 pounds for her role, but also to carry eight-year-old Elle Fanning during two days of filming in the California desert.
When no extras had been found by casting 17 days before the planned shooting in Morocco, public advertising for participation in the shooting was carried out on radio, television and notices in mosques. More than 200 interested parties registered within 24 hours, almost all of which can be seen in the finally published version.
Tough bureaucratic processes prevented a timely filming permit for the scene with Chieko and her father taking place in the car. As a result, the film team created an artificial traffic jam and began recording without permission. The local authorities started looking for the film team while the film was being recorded.
Almost all scenes in the film were shot with handheld cameras.
Because the film was made at different times on different continents, some of the actors involved did not meet each other until the film premiere.
Reviews
Andreas Borcholte from Spiegel sums up: “Given a running time of almost two and a half hours and a story that was announced as a modern parable of the biblical tower , one prepared for the next strain, but Iñárritu achieved the miracle with his amazing and rousing film To give the festival audience new courage […] Iñárritu manages to create haunting scenes that are fantastically staged by the proven Brokeback Mountain team Rodrigo Prieto (camera) and Gustavo Santaolalla (music): Brad Pitt [delivers…] with deep wrinkles and mottled hair his best roles so far. "
Martin Rosefeldt from the editorial team of the TV station ARTE is of the opinion that Babel is “still not a megalomaniac film. […] Iñárritus episodes are much more intimistic than in his first two films. The director's attention is focused on the vulnerability and fragility of his characters, as they emerge in an exceptional psychological situation behind the internalized social code and the communication rules it has learned . "
In Hollywood Reporter Ray Bennett writes that the film is tense, "unyielding and sometimes difficult to follow. [...] Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett and Gael García Bernal give committed ensemble performances alongside proven character actors and amateur actors. "
Karl Hafner wrote for the Tagesspiegel : “In addition to all communication problems, there is a universal grammar of gestures and facial expressions that become eloquent when language is no longer possible. In fear or in joy, in panic or in a feeling of loss, faces become alike. It doesn't matter whether someone comes from the American middle class, is a Muslim shepherd or a Japanese teenager. "
Hanns-Georg Rodek wrote for Die Welt : “It is the cinematic illustration of the butterfly theory , according to which a wing flap on one continent can trigger a storm on another […] Iñárritu [seems] more and more in [the] Hollywood-esque we-are to abort all-brothers-foolishness [...] Babel is a conciliatory film in which nobody is really guilty of anything [...]. "
Andrew O'Hehir sums up for Salon.com : "We are all connected, our feelings about joy and suffering are all similar, and we can only penetrate the other consciousness for ever escaping second intervals [...] What an effort has been made here, so that Cate Blanchett can lie on dirty ground and groan. [...] A good film, or rather several good films, and in fact chopped up. "
Esther Buss from Jungle World praises the film and its director: “The timing is always perfect. [...] Since films like Traffic , Syriana or LA Crash , this form of parallel montage has become a real discipline. […] Iñárritu tirelessly drives his characters into extreme situations, in which he is downright addicted to intensity. [...] Ultimately, you get the feeling that you have to thank you for the grace of the conciliatory end. "
Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle is of the opinion that the film does not manage to combine the four individual stories sufficiently: “Think about it: A character is bleeding to death on the floor in Morocco. Do I really care if Chieko has a boyfriend - or if the friendly babysitter makes it to the son's marriage in Mexico? Should it? [...] There simply remain four unequal stories, not one. "
Travis Mackenzie Hoover from the editorial team of Film Freak Central dismisses the film as "emotional pornography".
epd Film judges: "Iñárritu's technically virtuoso episode film aims at feeling, not at intellect: Its themes and motifs - global interdependence, cultural difference, human hubris - are rather unspecific and sometimes even clichéd."
Babel was selected both as a cinema tip by the Catholic film critics and as film of the month by the jury of the Protestant film work .
German director Fatih Akın stated that Babel had been a real help to him to understand how a dramaturgical concept doesn't work and to approach it better in his film On the Other Side .
Awards
After Alejandro González Iñárritus 'feature film debut Amores Perros made his debut at the Critics' Week in 2000, six years later the filmmaker and Babel made it for the first time in the competition of the renowned film festival on the Côte d'Azur at the 59th Cannes International Film Festival , where he was awarded the prize for best director and the prize of the Ecumenical Jury . American critic associations, on the other hand, largely ignored the drama, but honored the performance of the acting ensemble and in particular the performance of the two supporting actresses Rinko Kikuchi and Adriana Barraza . At the presentation of the Golden Globe Awards on January 15, 2007, Babel was the favorite with seven nominations, but was only able to prevail against the competition as the best film drama. At the presentation of the British Academy Film Award on February 11, 2007, seven nominations followed, but only film composer Gustavo Santaolalla could win the most important British film award. At the Oscars on February 25, 2007, Babel was again the favorite with seven nominations, but failed to meet expectations and only won the award for Best Score (Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima fared similarly ).
British Academy Film Awards 2007
Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards 2007
Cannes International Film Festival 2006
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Chicago Film Critics Association Awards 2006
Directors Guild of America 2007
Online Film Critics Society Awards 2007
Palm Springs International Film Festival 2007
San Francisco Film Critics Circle 2006
Satellite Awards 2006
Screen Actors Guild Awards 2007
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Web links
- Babel in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Babel at rotten tomatoes (English)
- Babel at Metacritic (English)
- Official German website of Babel (Flash only)
- Tobis Film's website ( memento from December 18, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ^ Certificate of Release for Babel . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , December 2006 (PDF; test number: 108 419 K).
- ↑ Age designation for Babel . Youth Media Commission .
- ↑ Interview with Alejandro González Iñárritu in Die Tageszeitung from December 21, 2006
- ↑ "saves [... her] from suicide." (Rüdiger Suchsland) Rüdiger Suchsland: Babel. In: Artechock. Retrieved January 23, 2009 .
- ↑ Budget and box office results according to the Internet Movie Database
- ↑ Locations according to the Internet Movie Database
- ↑ a b c Start dates according to the Internet Movie Database
- ↑ Film profile at cannes-filmfestival.com ( Memento from March 20, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (web.archive, English)
- ↑ Rüdiger Suchsland: “What we share is the pain”. In: Artechock. December 21, 2006, accessed January 23, 2009 .
- ↑ http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=babel.htm
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Budget and box office results according to the Internet Movie Database
- ↑ Andreas Borcholte: One shot goes around the world. In: Der Spiegel . May 23, 2006, accessed January 23, 2009 .
- ^ Martin Rosefeldt: Babel. In: Arte . December 19, 2006, archived from the original on February 6, 2009 ; Retrieved January 23, 2009 .
- ↑ Ray Bennett: Babel. In: The Hollywood Reporter . May 24, 2006, archived from the original on October 29, 2006 ; accessed on January 23, 2009 : "Tense, relentless and difficult to watch [...] Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett and Gael Garcia Bernal give committed ensemble performances alongside seasoned character performers and non-actors."
- ^ Karl Hafner: BABEL. (No longer available online.) In: Der Tagesspiegel . December 20, 2006, archived from the original on February 22, 2007 ; Retrieved on January 23, 2009 (quoted from Film-Zeit, see web links). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Hanns-Georg Rodek: Whom the butterfly hits. In: The world . May 24, 2006, accessed January 23, 2009 .
- ↑ Andrew O'Hehir: “Babel”. In: Salon.com . October 27, 2006, accessed on January 23, 2009 (English): "We are all connected, your experiences of joy and pain are closely akin to mine, but we can only pierce each other's consciousness in fleeting, split-second increments [... ] Tremendous resources have been expended here so that Cate Blanchett can lie on a dirt floor and moan […] It's a good movie, or, more accurately, it's several pieces of good movie, chopped up. "
- ↑ Esther Buss: The globalization of pain. In: Jungle World . December 21, 2006, accessed January 23, 2009 .
- ^ Mick LaSalle: Four stories add up to less than one. (No longer available online.) In: San Francisco Chronicle . November 3, 2006, archived from the original on May 18, 2009 ; Retrieved on January 23, 2009 (English): “Think about it: One character is bleeding to death in Morocco. Do you really care if Chieko has a boyfriend - or if the nice nanny gets to go to her son's wedding in Mexico? Moreover, should you? […] Remains just four disparate stories, not one. ” Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Travis Mackenzie Hoover: BABEL (2006). In: filmfreakcentral.net. October 27, 2006, archived from the original on April 19, 2012 ; accessed on January 23, 2009 (English): "emotional pornographers"
- ↑ a b joint venture d. Evang. Journalism (Ed.): Epd-Film . Magazine d. Evang. Press service of the Protestant journalism. No. 12/2006 . Evangelical Press Service Frankfurt / Main, 2006, ISSN 0176-2044 , p. 34 f . ( Online ).
- ^ Film service : Babel. In: Filmlexikon. Two thousand and one, accessed July 29, 2010 .
- ↑ Fatih Akin in conversation with the world , September 20, 2007, p. 27
