Babel

I just got done watching Babel. It was tough to watch in the same depressing way that Robert Altman's Short Cuts was tough. Perhaps Babel is not as tawdry as Short Cuts but similar in that disaster was constantly lurking.

Great acting. Brad Pitt was tremendous and Cate Blanchett was even more tremendous. I wonder where Blanchett stores her talent on her days off. Maybe she stashes her talent in a warehouse the same way Jay Leno stores his vintage cars.

The blub said that the movie was about the necessity and impossibility of communication. I imagine that's the case. A lot of artists focus on these kinds of formal problems. But what made the Moroccan and San Diego segments so compelling was the juxtaposition between the different kinds of desperation, the association of desperation with power in the Brad Pitt character and the association with powerlessness in the Moroccan boys and the Mexican nanny.

I liked the Japanese segment best though--mostly because I identified with the mute yearning of deaf-mute girl. It was a very long time before I could put words to my own yearnings.