Watching a bunch of movies around the Osacr flurry can be a bit taxing, but films such as "Babel" and "The Departed" do excite one about the interesting possibilities of cinema as a medium. A medium that encompasses every conceivable artistic possibility. Let me take a look at "Babel" first.
Being aware of the fact that "Babel" is part of the trilogy that the Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu started with "Amores Perros," the non-linear style and grammar of the film was predictable. Still, it packed tremendous amount of cinematic punch. I was amazed by the intricately woven layers - both in terms of the content and form. Do we miss human performance in this grammatically amusing cienmatic marvel? Not at all. All the actors, including most of the amateurs, did fabulously well. Though it received quite a number of nominations, there were justified speculations that Alejandro might not be succesful because of the repetition of narrative style.
I might sound stupid if I say that the story is about a minor, innocent shooting incident in the inaccessible hills of Morocco, its trans-national links and the related socio-political and cultural contexts. In fact that is the one line story one can narrate. However, it can be deconstructed and viewed from as many perspectives as one might want to. I, for instance, watched it from the perspective of the war against terror, in which real people are forgotten and how paranoia and excessively speculative reponses and conspiracy theories place citizens' rights below the State's priorities. How simple solutions skip the minds of the powers-that-be and how everything related to a Muslim state and a gun assumes stupidly complicated proportions. I wouldn't want to let out more on that because that will kill the possibilities of watching this great movie.
To me, the movie is also about the connectedness of the world and how the poor and politically powerless in this world pays for this connectedness. It is also about the failure of established systems and how the people and things that you truly despise in your life comes to your rescue. It is about the servile existence of majority of people to a simple minority of the powerful and the rich; about the fallacies of nationhood, good deeds and so on. In fact, I can go on and on looking at the different layers. The engineering precision with which he packs the layers of events against time and geography is simply brilliant. We have seen this before, but this one is impeccable.
Alejandro, who stunned us with "21 Grams" three years ago, literally overwhelms us with his cerebral creativity and cinematic competence. The use of silence, static shots and close ups, excellent use of the lenses (look out for the scenes of abandonment and helplessness of on the US-Mexican border) the artistically calibrated length of shots and the deft mix of fidgety and steady shots make the movie extremely interesting.
I might sound stupid if I say that the story is about a minor, innocent shooting incident in the inaccessible hills of Morocco, its trans-national links and the related socio-political and cultural contexts. In fact that is the one line story one can narrate. However, it can be deconstructed and viewed from as many perspectives as one might want to. I, for instance, watched it from the perspective of the war against terror, in which real people are forgotten and how paranoia and excessively speculative reponses and conspiracy theories place citizens' rights below the State's priorities. How simple solutions skip the minds of the powers-that-be and how everything related to a Muslim state and a gun assumes stupidly complicated proportions. I wouldn't want to let out more on that because that will kill the possibilities of watching this great movie.
To me, the movie is also about the connectedness of the world and how the poor and politically powerless in this world pays for this connectedness. It is also about the failure of established systems and how the people and things that you truly despise in your life comes to your rescue. It is about the servile existence of majority of people to a simple minority of the powerful and the rich; about the fallacies of nationhood, good deeds and so on. In fact, I can go on and on looking at the different layers. The engineering precision with which he packs the layers of events against time and geography is simply brilliant. We have seen this before, but this one is impeccable.
Alejandro, who stunned us with "21 Grams" three years ago, literally overwhelms us with his cerebral creativity and cinematic competence. The use of silence, static shots and close ups, excellent use of the lenses (look out for the scenes of abandonment and helplessness of on the US-Mexican border) the artistically calibrated length of shots and the deft mix of fidgety and steady shots make the movie extremely interesting.
Among the performances, I was particularly impressed by the Mexican actress Adrianna Barraza. She literally lives the disempowerment that countless Mexican illegal immigrants experience in the US. Do watch out for her. She is a veteran. An equally interesting performance is that of Japanese actress Rinko Kikuchi, another powerhouse to watch out for. Cate Blanchet and Brad Pitt, the lead performers, do justice to their roles.
Babel also signifies a new quality in film writing. Guillermo Arriga, who has written Alejandro's earlier works, redefines the art of screenplay writing. It is itense, intelleigent and has a very high literary quality. In about 140 minutes, if a film can take one through the creative stress of an interesting work of fiction, its worth a watch and a difficult piece to write.
By the way, Alejandro was a DJ in Mexico before he studied cinema. Is it a give away on his style. Anyway, he was not the one who started it. The most complicated of them all was "Memento" which demonstrated structural engineering in films followed by Gus Van Sant's "Elephant", which won two top honours at 2003 Cannes festival.
1 comment:
Actually BABEL made me angry - i started cursing the minute the movie was over.I kept saying "why the f.. do the americans always get away wtih things while the rest of the world suffers?"
Post a Comment