Putting the ‘what if’ idea to good use

The 11th chapter of the Bible’s Book of Genesis says that God punished mankind’s arrogance for thinking that heaven can be reached by building the tallest tower possible in Babel. He created confusion among them by causing them to speak in different tongues. It is generally believed that that episode marked the beginning of men talking in assorted languages and being dispersed to the parts of the world that became their countries.

I have not read anything about what happened to Babel after that and the tower that was never finished. Maybe it still stands there, an unrecognizable wreck eroded by time in a place whose name does not exist anymore. Babel as a term though remains in use. It has come to mean noise that cannot be understood.

It is this inability to understand and to be understood in this divided world of ours that the talented team of director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga explores in the acclaimed motion picture Babel. Set in four countries, the US, Mexico, Morroco and Japan, it uses a single gunshot to show how love and misfortune can link the lives of people who belong to different races, speak different languages and are in different parts of the world.

In Morocco, a young goatherd proudly tries out his father’s hunting rifle from a hillside by targeting a passing bus. In the bus are Richard (Brad Pitt) and Susan (Cate Blanchett), a well-to-do couple from San Diego, California, who took the trip to Morocco in an attempt to get over the recent death of their baby. They have two older children whom they left behind in the care of their Mexican maid Amelia (Adriana Barraza). Susan is hit by the gunshot in the neck and it is at this juncture that the action escalates to mirror the confusion in communication associated with Babel.

Richard, trapped with other tourists in a remote Moroccan village, seeks help from the US Embassy to save Susan. This brings the media into the picture and in no time at all, the shooting becomes magnified into a terrorist incident. As the goatherd and his family turn into terrorists, the origin of the gun is traced to Japan. There the gun is connected to Yasujiro (Koji Yakusho), who gifted his hunting guide with the rifle, who in turn sold it to the goatherd Abdullah. He has problems of his own. He is still trying to get over the suicide of his wife and he is growing desperate about his inability to discipline his promiscuous deaf-mute daughter Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi).

Back in the US, Amelia allowed her no-good nephew Santiago (Gael Garcia Bernal) to convince her to attend a wedding in Mexico. In defiance of Richard’s strict orders, she brings the children with them. It is on their hurried way back that problems crop up with the border police and Amelia is not allowed to get back to America.

Babel is riddled with what ifs. If Yasujiro had not given his rifle away then Susan would not have been shot. If their baby had not died Richard and Susan would never have gone to Morocco. If the jackals had not been menacing the goats then Abdullah would never have bought the gun. If Amelia had better sense, she would not have gone to Mexico with the children. And Yasujiro would not have been subjected to questioning by the Tokyo police about the gun and even the sexual promiscuity of his daughter.

The what if idea is seldom utilized in film because it has no definite beginning or ending. It goes on and on and on, breeding situation after situation and more trajectories than you can count with every character and incident. But isn’t this what actually happens in real life? While we like to think of ourselves as the lead characters in a linear life story, this is really not the truth. Life is cause and effect, action and reaction. Nothing is without antecedent and nothing is ever final. Fate decides life and over that we have no control.

This is the theme that Inarritu, who also did the very well-crafted Amores Perros and 21 Grams, with Arriaga as his writer, explores in Babel. Complex and set in a large scale, filled with seemingly disjointed events and unlikely protagonists, Babel seems incoherent at times. Thanks to masterful writing and editing though the pieces of the puzzle soon fall into place, the parallel tales meld and the viewer is seized with the impact of the inevitable.

Filled with stunning performances from an also diverse ensemble of actors, Babel is truly a panorama of sight, sound and emotions. It presents what physically separates people from one another. Aurally, there is the babel of noises that brings to fore the linguistic diversity of life on earth. Visually, the camera lays out the geographic difference of the harsh mountain roads of Morocco from the neon-lighted streets of Tokyo or the garish charm of a Mexican wedding and other sights.

But then, against these, there leaps at you images of rage, fear, loss, desperation and selfless love. Whatever the time, place or language, pain remains the same. And as the film superbly illustrates, requires no translation.